ANTWERP - He was one of the most important investigative journalists in Belgium. He published revelations about the murder of the leader of the socialist party André Cools, the Gang of Nivelles, the arms trade and the extreme right. He loved the idea that those in power would have been safer without him and he had a phenomenal archive. He died young from Alzheimer's.
In this book, Klaartje Schrijvers tells the fascinating story of Walter De Bock, whom she got to know while writing her PhD-dissertation on a 20th-century neo-aristocratic elite. Yet this is not a classical biography. Walter's archive also grasps the post-war spirit of the times: the Cold War atmosphere, the anti-communist networks, the period in which some of the elite wanted to convert Brussels into the New York of Europe.
But above all, this book is about knowing and forgetting, about what history means when knowledge disappears. It is a journey through historical and journalistic quests for the truth and an ode to heuristics: the art of finding.
BOOK
- Title: Het Archief van Walter (The Archive of Walter)
- Subtitle: De onderzoeksjournalist, de historica en de waarheid (The investigative journalist, the historian and the truth)
- Language: Dutch
- Date of publication: March 2020
- 260 pages
- Editor: EPO
- EAN: 9789462672017
