Belgium, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Sir James Emerson Tennent arrives in Ostend in the 1830s, shortly after Belgium has wrenched itself from Dutch control, and proceeds to catalogue a nation caught between memory and ambition. His account crackles with the confident opinions of a man who has seen empires rise and fall: he finds Ostend rather ugly, is enchanted by Bruges in its decline (those silent belfries, those empty merchant houses), and dissects the new Belgian state with the eye of a politician who understands that independence is only the beginning of a nation's troubles. The real magic here is Tennent's melancholy awareness that he is witnessing a country mourning its lost commercial supremacy while trying to build something new. He writes with evident affection for the place, but also with the sharp didactic impulse of a Victorian sage certain that Belgium's story contains lessons for Ireland and every other subordinate nation dreaming of self-rule. Part acute political observation, part haunted travelogue through medieval streets, this is a document that understands how nations are haunted by what they once were.