Nationalism in Belgium


Book Description

This is a book about shifting national identities in Belgium. It is an attempt to show how these identities emerged and evolved. It aims at explaining why the Belgian identity, which in 1830 was so strong that it could create a new nation-state, has become so weak that today it has to accept a mere overarching role above and in competition with the new national loyalties. More and more people wonder whether this country will survive.




The Everyday Nationalism of Workers


Book Description

The Everyday Nationalism of Workers upends common notions about how European nationalism is lived and experienced by ordinary people—and the bottom-up impact these everyday expressions of nationalism exert on institutionalized nationalism writ large. Drawing on sources from the major urban and working-class centers of Belgium, Maarten Van Ginderachter uncovers the everyday nationalism of the rank and file of the socialist Belgian Workers Party between 1880 and World War I, a period in which Europe experienced the concurrent rise of nationalism and socialism as mass movements. Analyzing sources from—not just about—ordinary workers, Van Ginderachter reveals the limits of nation-building from above and the potential of agency from below. With a rich and diverse base of sources (including workers' "propaganda pence" ads that reveal a Twitter-like transcript of proletarian consciousness), the book shows all the complexity of socialist workers' ambivalent engagement with nationhood, patriotism, ethnicity and language. By comparing the Belgian case with the rise of nationalism across Europe, Van Ginderachter sheds new light on how multilingual societies fared in the age of mass politics and ethnic nationalism.







A Leap in the Dark


Book Description

The inhabitants of the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan have long been of interest to outside observers. They are Muslims yet they have matrilineal clans, and both houses and land tend to be owned and inherited by women. In the face of British rule, modern market forces, and Islamic nationalism, the Malays of the Rembau district of Negeri Sembilan have succeeded in retaining many features of their matrilineality. Michael Peletz examines persistence and change in the social organization of these Malays in the period 1830 to 1980.




The Intellectual Origins of the Belgian Revolution


Book Description

This book explores the political ideas of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, which led to the break-up of the Restoration state of the ‘united’ Kingdom of the Netherlands. It uncovers the origins of liberalism and political Catholicism in the Southern Netherlands in the wake of the French Revolution, and traces the development of political language in the context of the tensions between the Northern and Southern part of the united Netherlands. It shows how differences in ‘Dutch’ and ‘Belgian’ political and intellectual history resulted in different understandings of essential political concepts such as ‘sovereignty’ and ‘balance of powers’, as well as of the nature of the constitutional order of 1815. Finally, it traces the emergence of Belgian nationalism within the discourse of opposition against the government. Stefaan Marteel therefore provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual background of the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth century.




Culture, Identity and Nationalism


Book Description

This study examines the evolution of national and regional, cultural and political identities in that northern region of France which borders Belgium, over the two centuries which followed the French Revolution. During that time the region was transformed by the development of the industrial economy, population shifts, war and occupation, and numerous changes of political regime. Through an analysis of a wide range of issues, including language, regional and national political movements, educational policy, attitudes towards immigrants and the border, the press, trade unions, and the church - as well as the attitude of the French State - the author questions traditional interpretations of the process of national assimilation in France. At the same time he illustrates how the Franco-Belgian border, originally an arbitrary line through a culturally homogeneous region, became not only a significant marker for the identity of the French Flemish, but a real cultural division. TIMOTHY BAYCROFT is lecturer in French history, University of Sheffield.




The United States of Belgium


Book Description

New and comprehensive insights into the seminal events that shaped Belgian identity In 1790, between the birth of America (1776) and the creation of the French National Assembly (1789), nine provinces nestled between the French and Dutch borders declared themselves a new free and independent country: the United States of Belgium. Before then, the provinces had been part of the vast Austrian Habsburg Empire ruled by Joseph II. In 1789 revolutionaries from Brussels to Ghent to Namur recruited a grass-roots army that, to the surprise of many, successfully chased imperial forces from the majority of the territories. The exhilaration of military triumph and political independence quickly faded as revolutionary factions fought each other and the European monarchies became more nervous in the face of French radicalization. Yet, the course of events had fostered the solidification of a new identity among the provinces’ inhabitants: Belgianness. This is the story of the emergence of Belgianness in the crucible of revolution. The United States of Belgium tells the story of the First Belgian Revolution before the creation of a language barrier between French and Dutch. It incorporates over 50 contemporary images of the revolutionary era.




Nationalism in Belgium


Book Description

This is a book about shifting national identities in Belgium. It is an attempt to show how these identities emerged and evolved. It aims at explaining why the Belgian identity, which in 1830 was so strong that it could create a new nation-state, has become so weak that today it has to accept a mere overarching role above and in competition with the new national loyalties. More and more people wonder whether this country will survive.




Belgium and the Monarchy


Book Description

This is the first book in English on the history of the actual disintegration of Belgium. It analyses how Belgium and its kings managed to control in a non-violent way the complex nationalist antagonisms between Flemings and Walloons. --Book Jacket.




Decadence and Dark Dreams


Book Description

"Enigmatic magic, erotic sensuality and dark dreamworlds all characterise Symbolism, which evolved as an art current from the 1880s on - with Brussels advancing to become a centre of activity in the development of European art. The tendency towards the morbid and the decadent was most pronounced in Belgian Symbolism. Many of the impulses for this avant-garde came from Belgian artists, such as the disreputable Félicien Rops, the subtle Fernand Khnopff, the occult Jean Delville and the eccentric Léon Spilliaert and James Ensor."--back cover.