ABSTRACT
Belgium during the recent two decennia. This brief diachronic review will not provide a
single, ‘complete’, homogeneous account of this development process, as it will be
coloured by our own academic interests and experiences. For this historical review an
important statement of John Walker has been momentous:
Although various histories exist, this does not mean that there is more than
one material reality – as many worlds as there are individuals. One difficulty
all historians experience is that the past can never be reconstructed in its
totality and completeness; every history is, therefore, a partial or simplified
representation of a past situation. Selection is inevitable in history-writing.
