Since its first publication and throughout successive editions of Review of Culture, History has taken the "lion's share". Likewise the content of this edition is entirely dedicated to History.
Our purpose in concentrating solely on History is our great desire to bequeath to future generations a tradition of community and common identity and it is especially through our History that we can achieve this objective. Indeed, as asserted by a prominent figure in present-day Macanese History, Professor Fok Kai Cueing, a stable, peaceful and prosperous Macao will depend on the knowledge and understanding that future generations will have regarding the formula for the Territory's success.
Bearing in mind future questions and issues, Professor Fok refers to a complexity of past experiences within a political-administrative framework defined and tolerated by China in relation to Macao, since the early settlement of the Portuguese up to the Joint Declaration, and practised by continuous active generations under Portuguese Government.
It is impossible to consider a future without a recollection of the past, since it is through a retrospective of the past that communities plan and build for the future.
It is, therefore, a pressing and irrecusable task of today's generation to achieve this great Cultural venture which will be worked upon through two projects: one, academic and of great vitality, another of diffusion, which may be the means for the curricular development of the Territory's student population. We can no longer rely on past achievements bequeathed by insufficient historiography, from Ljungsted to Montalto de Jesus up to the vulgata by Eudore de Colomban. Our History has now to be reconsidered from the very urban structure to the social system, from the local and regional context to the universal fitting it implies, and from these angles it should be, as pointed out by Jorge Flores, a History filled with unanswered questions.
In order to fully shape such a History, beginning with its current imperfections, controversies and obscurities, it is essential to equate it with an international project, assisted by comparable methods and by bilingual teams of Portuguese and Chinese researchers, historians and archivists. Only in this context will it be possible and feasible to have a scientific knowledge of Macao, and with the sharing of common efforts and contributions by both Portuguese and Chinese. From a Historical point of view, no other small Territory in the World is so plural, complex and unique as Macao, considering the fact that to its History have converged the most diverse vectors, from the Far West to the Far East.
Projects, therefore, have been anticipated and it is indeed a great comfort to acknowledge the arrival of devoted historians sympathizing with this Janus vision of History -- that of looking forward as well as looking back, Historians such as Bryan de Sousa, Deng Kaisong, Huang Qichen, Jorge Flores, Jorge Alves, Fok Kai Cheong, Manguin, Roderich Ptak and William Usellis.
Calling our readers' attention to the comprehensive analysis by Tereza Sena, Review of Culture rejoices with the publication of this Monographic edition, equally shared by Portuguese and Chinese collaborators — a humble contribution to the great venture of the History of Macao which so irrecusably appeals to us.
Luís Sá Cunha
Editorial Director
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