Raquel Varela is the author of ‘A People’s History of the Portuguese Revolution’, which explores the roles of trade unions, artists and women in the military coup, while also providing a rich account of the challenges faced and the victories gained on 25 April 1974, when the Carnation Revolution took place.

In this ‘Through the lens ; discussion, come and discover more about the revolution through the perspective of eye witnesses, historians, artists and activists of whom Varela interviewed as part of her research for her recent graphic novel ‘Utopia’. 

Using illustrations of Robson Villaba, ‘Utopia’ travels back in time to the years before the revolution and introduces readers to the semi-fictionalised story of someone who lived through this period in their youth.

Join Varela at the museum or online on 28 May, to learn more about the famous military coup through the lens of real people of the carnation revolution.

About the speaker

Raquel Varela is an assistant professor with Habilitation at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

She is the author of Peoples History of the Carnation Revolution (Pluto, 2018), Peoples History of Europe (Pluto, 2019) and Utopia (2024), a graphic novel of the carnation ;

Varela is a social historian and a researcher in global labour history. She is President of the Observatory for Living and Working Conditions, Coordinator of Social Data/Nova, Integrated Researcher of the Research Group History, Territory and Communities CEF/UC/Polo FCSH and Collaborating Researcher at the Center for Global Studies at Universidade Aberta.

In 2020 she won the Prize of the Ibero-American Communication Association / University of Oviedo, Spain, for her contribution to global labour history and social movements and was distinguished with the Simone Veil-Project Europe research grant, University of ;

She is an honorary fellow at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and from 2011-2021 was a Group Leader in ;

In 2021, she was a visiting researcher at the Institute of European Global Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland and she also created the Social Data - Digital Platform for Social Sciences at FCSH / Nova.