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A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories)

A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories)
By Paul Arblaster

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Product Description

This is the first full historical survey of the Benelux area (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) to be written in English. Paul Arblaster describes the whole sweep of the history of the Low Countries, from Roman frontier provinces, through medieval principalities, to the establishment of the three constitutional monarchies of the present day. This readable overview highlights the international importance of the social, economic , spiritual, and cultural movements that have marked the region.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #373173 in Books
  • Published on: 2005-12-23
  • Released on: 2005-12-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 312 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Arblaster has lived in Belgium for half of his life and received much of his education in Dutch. He teaches at the Centre for European Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Customer Reviews

A complex history presented clearly with clarity and a light touch5
I have just finished this delightful book, "The Low Countries". I am not an academic, but rather a former international banker who lived in the proximity of the Low Countries (3 years in Germany and a year in London) before spending 10 years in the Far East, during which time I occasionally also had Dutch bosses and colleagues. I have long been intrigued but the differences in personalities of Cologne and Frankfurt where I lived and The Netherlands and Belgium so close by, yet found no history books that really helped me get my arms around their complex, interconnected histories. This book not only did this, but with an occasional sly humor that I came to look for with delight.

Full of Facts but boring3
My interest in stamp collecting led me to want to know more about Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Benelux nations. There didn't seem to be many choices and I wound up with this book. After struggling through about 80-100 pages or so, I finally gave up. The book is chock full of facts. The only trouble is that they are spit out at you one after another more or less chronologically with little or no interpretation. It just seemed to be one long litany of one person with an unpronouncable name killing off someone equally forgettable. I suppose to someone already familiar with the subject this stuff might be gripping. As a novice to the subject, I found it boring in the extreme.

I have to admire the author's scholorship. He's brought together a very complete history from the earliest times, with an amazing amount of detail of events prior to about 1300 AD where I stopped reading and presumably he continues in the same vein up to the present day. I just wish he'd tried more to put things in perspective, to complement *what* happened *when* with a bit more of *why* it happened and how it relates to the present.

The book has several maps at the beginning. They are too small (for my eyes anyway) and would have been much more meaningful to me if they had also shown the present-day borders of the countries (again, showing how the history relates to the present!) Ideally, it would be nice if it were done with clear overlays and in color but perhaps that is asking too much of a book these days.

Another simple improvement would have been a pronounciation guide or, better, give the pronounciation of each name the first time it is used. It would also be helpful if the author had included some genealogy charts so one could see how the players were connected. I admit, I got lost fast in this sea of battling strangers.

Having given up on the history of the low countries, this morning I began reading "The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown" by Hugh Agnew. (Also prompted by my stamp collecting interest.) Unlike the lowlands, I found myself reading this book with pleasure and zipping right along. If nothing else, it shows I'm not negative about all history books, just this one.

I don't necessarily mean to put anyone off from "A History of the Low Countires", just be aware that it is a scholarly work and not something the average person will read for pleasure.