Questions of importance

Almost exactly a year ago, I published a review of Holly Case's The Age of Questions: Or, A First Attempt at an Aggregate History of the Eastern, Social, Woman, American, Jewish, Polish, Bullion, Tuberculosis, and Many Other Questions over the Nineteenth Century, and Beyond. In this fascinating study, Case examines the concept of 'the question' as a way of speaking and thinking about societal phenomena. The book has many merits, of which I would stress its real transnational perspective: the usual suspects from Victorian Britain appear alongside Hungarian diplomats (whom Case read in the original). While she focusses on the nineteenth century, the study prompts one to think beyond the turn of the century. I, for one, was reminded of how in King Ottokar's Sceptre, the eighth volume in the Adventures of Tintin, in which the Eastern Question and the Belgian Question are bundled and mirrored. The review was published in Karakter is now available for the general public here (in Dutch). ​