The Academy of Sciences of Lisbon awarded the Júlio Fogaça Prize 2024 ex-aequo to Jorge M. Pedreira for his essay ‘Estrutura da Antiga Sociedade Portuguesa: Ordem social e sistemas de classificação – Revisitação de um problema historiográfico’ [Structure of Ancient Portuguese Society: Social order and classification systems – Revisiting a historiographical problem]. The other prize-winner was Beatriz Peralta García for the three volumes ‘Obras de Ernesto da Silva, o apóstolo do socialismo’ [Works by Ernesto da Silva, the apostle of socialism] (University of Coimbra Press, 2023).

Jorge M. Pedreira’s essay, which has now won an award, was first presented as a lesson in the context of the Aggregation Exams in Sociology at the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH), in April 2024. The aim of the lesson was to ‘analyse and discuss the main characteristics of the structure of ancient Portuguese society and in particular those which, by their reproduction, construct a social order, in particular classification systems’. Jorge M. Pedreira is an Associate Professor at the NOVA FCSH’s History Department and a researcher at the IHC, where he focuses on economic and social history, as well as historical sociology.

The Júlio Fogaça Prize was instituted by the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon in 2022, in fulfilment of the will of the testator Júlio de Melo Fogaça, and is intended to reward essays on the History of Portugal, more specifically ‘works that shed new light on the historical evolution of the Portuguese people, either by the subject matter presented or by the treatment of the data collected’. It has a monetary value of 7500 euros and is awarded annually.