This grand and unusual book, whose meaning extends far beyond the borders of Belgium, is the product of thirty-five years of cultural investigation of that small European country. When Renée Fox first traveled to Brussels in 1959 to study the Belgian institutions of medical research, she scarcely realized how strongly the Belgian way of life would take hold of her. Here she draws upon her extraordinary knowledge of and research in the country to describe the "house" of Belgium and its many "houses"–institutional and personal, literal and metaphoric. Ms. Fox moves across the geographical and social terrain of the country, using her autobiography as a wedge to explore the ways of fife of the châteaux and their inhabitants. Blending social and cultural analysis with ethnography, contemporary history, interviews, and her personal reflections, she succeeds in conveying the values, images, atmosphere, and world-view of a whole European society since World War II. At bottom a study of social institutions and social processes, the book is much more than that: a collective portrait of life in a small land, with larger human and social significance.
