Success of a Belgian Political Elite

This review of Martin Conway’s The Sorrows of Belgium notes its emphasis on continuities across the liberation and its implicit reperiodisation of Belgian history so that the 1960s rather than 1945 mark the real break with the country’s nineteenth century past. Conway argues that this continuity was facilitated by a widespread desire for a return to normalcy, a desire which helped political elites inside and outside parliament reassert the central role of the state in the country’s life. Mark Mazower also discusses Conway’s treatment of political ideas, especially those that emerged in respons... Mehr ...