Flanders A Cultural History [Hardcover]

Andr? de Vries explores the varied landmarks of Flanders, both rural and urban, to reveal this region's unique character. Considering great cities such as Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges, he traces the development of a civic culture based on both trade and ideas, in which religion and language play a vital part. Looking too at the Flemish countryside, he explains the role of festivals and folk culture, gluttony and pleasure, in the survival of a strongly local identity.

INTRODUCTION: My Mostly Flat Country
CHAPTER ONE: War, Language and Flemish Freedom
CHAPTER TWO: Religion and Folklore
CHAPTER THREE: Food, Drink and Popular Culture
CHAPTER FOUR: Ghent and the Gate to Hell
CHAPTER FIVE: East Flanders and the Scheldt
CHAPTER SIX: Bruges: Petrified Dreams
CHAPTER SEVEN: Ypres and the First World War
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Coast and West Flanders
CHAPTER NINE: Antwerp: City of Rubens
CHAPTER TEN: Brussels, Leuven and Mechelen
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Kempen and Limburg
CHAPTER TWELVE: New Landscapes and Dutch Flanders
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: French Flanders
Further Reading
Index of Literary & Historical Names
Index of Places

Informative and lucid....De Vries's writing is vivid. --T. Goyens,CHOICE

The book is well written, entertaining, easy to read, and contains an impressive range of interesting facts, anecdotes, and information about the composite parts of Flanders. Its strength is the range of material, and the ability of the author to relate the political, cultural, and artistic elements to one another, to create a wellpresented, rounded vision of the historical landscape of Flanders. --The Historian

Andr? de Vries, a native of Ghent, is a writer and translator with a particular interest in Flemish. He is also the author ofBrussels: A Cultural and Literary History.