Abstract
The Iberian States began the European overseas expansion - as a European enterprise - at the turn of the 15th to the 16th century, and in the 17th and 18th centuries, assuming the contours of the transition to modernity, marked by a design that dates back to the fight against Islam, which marked the formation of contemporaneity and the transition from the Ancien Régime to the capitalist period in southern Europe, with an impact on the world (from the outset in the relationship with England, the engine of capitalism), in an integrated global vision: modes of production, trade on a global scale, political regimes, finally, what is the mark of the transition to modernity in southern Europe? And how is it in Portugal?
Keywords:
Despotism; Capitalism; Transition; Modernity; Iberian States