Your book begins with the ancient history of Morocco and Belgium, then moves through time up to the present day. How did you go about documenting this journey?

Belgian’s colonial history remains a topic of heated discussion in the country, making it a particularly fraught subject for the royal family.

A chronology of key events in Belgium's history from 1830 to the present.

Belgium abolished the octroi taxes some twenty years ago, with the result of making some of the commonest articles much cheaper in Belgian than in French towns.

For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. Many classrooms still have Hergé's famous cartoon book Tintin in the Congo, with its depictions of black people now commonly ...