Full Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon and Integrated Researcher at the History Center of the University of Lisbon. A BA degree in History from the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon led to a vocation for research and teaching. The contact with Manuel Antunes, S.J. (1918-1985) was decisive for his training in cultural history and for the dialogical understanding of history with philology, philosophy, literature, anthropology, sociology, etc. The work and research relationship with Luís de Albuquerque (1917-1992), Luís de Matos (1911-1995) and J.S. Silva Dias (1916-1994) contributed to his special interest and training in Portuguese Renaissance culture and the history of the Portuguese diaspora in the world. From the end of the 1980s, his interest and training grew in themes and problems of Asian history, especially Monsoon Asia, and in Eurasian intercultural relations. From the 1990s, with the possibility of teaching, research and training in East Asia itself, training in European-China relations and in the Ming and Qing China history, in the field of socio-cultural history, was strengthened.