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.