The ultimate travel guide for enthusiasts and those interested in learning more about these unique brewing cultures - whether or not they make the trip!

Rather than simply assuming that some states are small and others are big, The Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe delves deep into the construction of different size-based hierarchies in Europe and explores the way Europeans have thought about their own state's size and that of their continental neighbours since the early 19th century. By positing that ideas about size are intimately connected with both basic discourses about a state's identity and policy discourses about the range of options most appropriate to that state, this multi-contributor volume presents a novel way of thinking about what makes one state, in the eyes of both its own inhabitants and those of others, different from others, and what effects these perceived differences have had, and continue to have, on domestic, European, and global politics. Bringing together an international team of historians and political scientists, this nuanced and sophisticated study examines the connections between shifting ideas about a state's (relative) size, competing notions of national interest and mission, and international policy in modern Europe and beyond.

Belgium in the First World War--the first country invaded, the longest occupied, and when the war finally ended, the first forgotten. In 1914, Belgium was home to a large American colony which included representatives of American companies, artists, writers and diplomats with the American Legation. After the invasion, American journalists and adventurers flocked there to follow the action; military restrictions on travel were less stringent than in England or France. As the most industrialized country in Europe, Belgium depended upon trade and food imports to support its economy. The war isolated Belgium and wholesale starvation was imminent by the fall of 1914. Herbert Hoover and his Commission for Relief in Belgium raised funds to purchase and import food to sustain Belgium and, eventually, Occupied France as well. Idealistic American volunteers (including some Rhodes scholars) supervised food distribution in the occupation zone. Along the Western Front in Belgium, hundreds of Americans served (illegally) in the British and Canadian armies. This book tells the story of the German invasion, occupation and retreat from the perspective of Americans who were there.