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Een geschiedenis van België
Nieuwe en geactualiseerde editie In zijn eigen navolgbare stijl schetst Marc Reynebeau een helder en compleet overzicht van een land dat het product werd van zijn eigen geschiedenis, niet meer maar ook niet minder artificieel dan eender welk land. Wat heeft België sinds zijn ontstaan in 1830 betekend? Hoe is de democratie er gegroeid? Welke Belgen hebben bepaald dat België zou worden wat het is? En vooral: wat hebben Belgen zoals u en ik met deze geschiedenis te maken? Voor ieder die meer wil weten over de vaderlandse geschiedenis is dit werk een must. Reynebeau verhaalt niet enkel de macrostructuren en de grote lijnen, maar ook de microsamenleving, de invloed die de kleine man had in de evolutie van België. Hij zoomt in op betekenisvolle details en wisselt af met abstracte overzichten of wetenswaardige lijstjes.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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March 31, 2021A journalist's history.
Not bad, well not bad bad for sure, but not coming over as good either. I was going to say that the short history of a country tends to the average, neither really good nor really bad, just revealing the author's idiosyncrasies. But then I remembered my experience of Approaches to the History of Spain, I can't say that that book gave me a profound knowledge of Spanish history, but it certainly gave me the feeling that it had, and it also gave me a basic chronological framework of Spanish history. So from that memory I can say that the one volume history of a country can be exciting, and be insightful, however this one was not, at least not for me.
It begins, unusually, with a humility topos, and perhaps the apologetic tone put me off from the start. More seriously I felt that the book consistently demonstrated the inadequacy of writing a history of a single country, the description of economic and political malaise, eventually public distrust in government from the 70s through to the 90s reminded me of Britain at the same time, really I suppose these factors were simply the natural consequences of the end of Les Trente Glorieuses , earlier I was struck by the phenomena of weak, short lived governments while a few strong political parties captured most of the votes (the same situation as in Third Republic France), anti-clericalism (ditto , apparently even the Drefus affair penetrated into nineteenth century Belgian political life.
So one game I could play while reading was spotting what was particular and distinctive to Belgian history. The most obvious one was the governments early commitment to developing a national railway network - with certain lines deemed to be less or non-essential given to private businesses to develop, and even these were over time bought out (a process that ended only in the 1950s), this was followed by state purchase or development of key infrastructure which struck me as unusual in nineteenth century Europe.
A certain amount of what he wrote did not make a great deal of sense to me, he stressed that peasant life was autarkic, before a couple of pages later detailing that there had been an agricultural revolution in the eighteenth century and that the cottage industry of linen weaving was wide spread which left me wondering if he had troubled to read his own text before sending it to the publisher . Things have a tendency to just occur without warning in this book, the most remarkable example of this is the sudden development of Belgium into a Federal state which in this account comes out of the blue as though the government was suddenly bored of the constitutional set up and sought to shake it up, just for the hell of it. Perhaps this reflects that this is a book written by a journalist - there is a tendency for the chapter to be built up out of what might have been short newspaper or magazine articles, some of these are nicely written pieces - like the section on the railways, but it does seem to result in odd omissions - so the decolonialisation of the Congo is described but not the transfer of the colony from Leopold II to the state of Belgium, or its role in the history of Belgium - except obliquely in the Mobuto era.
But I think I must pull back from biting at distinct points in the text that captured my attention and give some impression of the book as a whole. Marc Reynebeau's history of Belgium is something like this: Independence in 1830, country divided into conservative clericals and liberals the coming of the railways, pulling in their wake an industrial revolution based on coal and iron production in Wallonia, while Flanders is rural (with some textile production) the average size of companies is however small. A few inter-married families dominate the economy and there was (is?) a significant overlap between commercial and political leadership. The country has a parliamentary two chamber system with a restricted franchise (starting at around 1% of the male population having the vote). The state leads in developing and owning infrastructure. The Church opts out of a state education system creating it's own 'free' system, the liberals crash out of government which is dominated by the Catholic conservatives down to WWI. Rise of the bicycle. Reluctance to give women the vote because obviously they would all vote for the most clerical party. Rise of a socialist party, coupled with the development of a co-operative movement which shrinks dramatically in the great depression after the Wall Street Crash. Inter war period of weak governments. WWII. Royal crisis. Rise of the motor car. Surprise decolonisation of the Congo. Late twentieth century malaise in economy, politics, and society. Surprise Federalisation of the state. Some more governments (not very surprising). Some surprise punks appear to show the author is aware that such things as cultural and social history exist. History ends without a mention of Francis Fukayama.
So it is your standard fat history of a single country, sadly without maps or illustrations. It is not a bad book, but neither is it good, but it is uncomfortably average - a cycle ride over cobble stones.
Not bad, well not bad bad for sure, but not coming over as good either. I was going to say that the short history of a country tends to the average, neither really good nor really bad, just revealing the author's idiosyncrasies. But then I remembered my experience of Approaches to the History of Spain, I can't say that that book gave me a profound knowledge of Spanish history, but it certainly gave me the feeling that it had, and it also gave me a basic chronological framework of Spanish history. So from that memory I can say that the one volume history of a country can be exciting, and be insightful, however this one was not, at least not for me.
It begins, unusually, with a humility topos, and perhaps the apologetic tone put me off from the start. More seriously I felt that the book consistently demonstrated the inadequacy of writing a history of a single country, the description of economic and political malaise, eventually public distrust in government from the 70s through to the 90s reminded me of Britain at the same time, really I suppose these factors were simply the natural consequences of the end of Les Trente Glorieuses , earlier I was struck by the phenomena of weak, short lived governments while a few strong political parties captured most of the votes (the same situation as in Third Republic France), anti-clericalism (ditto , apparently even the Drefus affair penetrated into nineteenth century Belgian political life.
So one game I could play while reading was spotting what was particular and distinctive to Belgian history. The most obvious one was the governments early commitment to developing a national railway network - with certain lines deemed to be less or non-essential given to private businesses to develop, and even these were over time bought out (a process that ended only in the 1950s), this was followed by state purchase or development of key infrastructure which struck me as unusual in nineteenth century Europe.
A certain amount of what he wrote did not make a great deal of sense to me, he stressed that peasant life was autarkic, before a couple of pages later detailing that there had been an agricultural revolution in the eighteenth century and that the cottage industry of linen weaving was wide spread which left me wondering if he had troubled to read his own text before sending it to the publisher . Things have a tendency to just occur without warning in this book, the most remarkable example of this is the sudden development of Belgium into a Federal state which in this account comes out of the blue as though the government was suddenly bored of the constitutional set up and sought to shake it up, just for the hell of it. Perhaps this reflects that this is a book written by a journalist - there is a tendency for the chapter to be built up out of what might have been short newspaper or magazine articles, some of these are nicely written pieces - like the section on the railways, but it does seem to result in odd omissions - so the decolonialisation of the Congo is described but not the transfer of the colony from Leopold II to the state of Belgium, or its role in the history of Belgium - except obliquely in the Mobuto era.
But I think I must pull back from biting at distinct points in the text that captured my attention and give some impression of the book as a whole. Marc Reynebeau's history of Belgium is something like this: Independence in 1830, country divided into conservative clericals and liberals the coming of the railways, pulling in their wake an industrial revolution based on coal and iron production in Wallonia, while Flanders is rural (with some textile production) the average size of companies is however small. A few inter-married families dominate the economy and there was (is?) a significant overlap between commercial and political leadership. The country has a parliamentary two chamber system with a restricted franchise (starting at around 1% of the male population having the vote). The state leads in developing and owning infrastructure. The Church opts out of a state education system creating it's own 'free' system, the liberals crash out of government which is dominated by the Catholic conservatives down to WWI. Rise of the bicycle. Reluctance to give women the vote because obviously they would all vote for the most clerical party. Rise of a socialist party, coupled with the development of a co-operative movement which shrinks dramatically in the great depression after the Wall Street Crash. Inter war period of weak governments. WWII. Royal crisis. Rise of the motor car. Surprise decolonisation of the Congo. Late twentieth century malaise in economy, politics, and society. Surprise Federalisation of the state. Some more governments (not very surprising). Some surprise punks appear to show the author is aware that such things as cultural and social history exist. History ends without a mention of Francis Fukayama.
So it is your standard fat history of a single country, sadly without maps or illustrations. It is not a bad book, but neither is it good, but it is uncomfortably average - a cycle ride over cobble stones.
June 24, 2018
Te veel politiek en economie, te weinig cultuur.
Waar zijn het stripverhaal, de moules-frites, bier, wafels, New Beat, Bonzai, Soulwax, Front 242, dEUS, Eddy Merckx en Paul Delvaux !?
Desalniettemin een zeer interessant essay dat leest als een trein, sinds 1835.
Waar zijn het stripverhaal, de moules-frites, bier, wafels, New Beat, Bonzai, Soulwax, Front 242, dEUS, Eddy Merckx en Paul Delvaux !?
Desalniettemin een zeer interessant essay dat leest als een trein, sinds 1835.
February 8, 2013
Een vlot leesbaar boek, waar ik veel uit geleerd heb over de verschillende machten/stromingen die Belgie gevormd hebben en die meer inzicht geven het Belgie van vandaag.
Een negatief punt, maar dat geldt dan waarschijnlijk voor historische boeken in het algemeen, is dat ik vaak het gevoel heb dat men doet alsof de geschiedenis een logische opeenvolging van gebeurtenissen is terwijl ik eerder denk dat veel op toeval berust en men wel 5 heel verschillende analyses zou kunnen maken die allemaal even juist lijken.
Een negatief punt, maar dat geldt dan waarschijnlijk voor historische boeken in het algemeen, is dat ik vaak het gevoel heb dat men doet alsof de geschiedenis een logische opeenvolging van gebeurtenissen is terwijl ik eerder denk dat veel op toeval berust en men wel 5 heel verschillende analyses zou kunnen maken die allemaal even juist lijken.
July 21, 2022
Narrow interpretation of history of Belgium
This book should have been titled “A history of Belgian politics” rather than “A history of Belgium”. The history of Belgian science or culture, for example, is hardly touched upon. Moreover, the history is rarely looked at through the eyes of ordinary people. Despite the occasional attempts of the author to use humour, the overall approach is rather lecturing, which makes the text too often boring. That said, the author is good at synthesising, which for me led to some enlightening insights.
This book should have been titled “A history of Belgian politics” rather than “A history of Belgium”. The history of Belgian science or culture, for example, is hardly touched upon. Moreover, the history is rarely looked at through the eyes of ordinary people. Despite the occasional attempts of the author to use humour, the overall approach is rather lecturing, which makes the text too often boring. That said, the author is good at synthesising, which for me led to some enlightening insights.
December 26, 2024
Saai verteld. Maar misschien heeft België ook gewoon een saaie geschiedenis
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews