Considering its size, population and wealth, as well as the international resonance of its eventful history, the past couple of years have seen surprisingly few academic studies on the colonial administration of King Leopold's Central African fiefdom and its successor, the Belgian Congo. The books under review are among the first results of a resurgence in interest, within Belgium, in this colonial past, hopefully also heralding the restoration of Congo to its central place in the international historiography of colonialism in Africa.

As the final part of the four-volume Nouvelle histoire de la Belgique, the focus of Guy Vanthemsche's La Belgique et le Congo is not on the Congolese side of the relationship, but on the way in which the political and economic fabric of the metropole was shaped by its colonial-power status. The author thus situates his contribution within the tradition of the likes of Bernard Porter, Andrew Thompson and Jacques Marseille. La Belgique et le Congo is, however, more modest in aim and scope: its many qualities notwithstanding, it only occasionally transcends the study of the management of and tensions surrounding (post-)colonial issues within Belgium.

The development of Belgium's colonial policy largely took place outside of the country's parliamentary and party political institutions. Only after the Second World War did the challenges of modernizing the colonial empire initiate the gradual incorporation of colonialism into the country's political fabric – the discussion of the political imagination surrounding ‘closer union’ within a Greater Belgium is one of the book's most fascinating passages – but this politicization remained muted by a broad political consensus on fundamentals and the centrality of the country's colonial prowess to its national imagery. Control over Congo's strategic mineral resources more profoundly marked Belgium's international position, in particular during both World Wars and – an aspect explored in less detail – within the context of the Cold War. While its colonial status heightened Belgium's international profile, its colonial intransigence and its unilateralism during the Congo crisis also isolated the country within the expanding United Nations. Congo's economic importance to the metropole was equally derived from, but largely limited to, its mineral wealth: never an important market for Belgian industry, its main link with the metropole – Antwerp's diamond industry exempted – was through the non-ferrous metal industry controlled by the same holdings (the Société Générale in particular) which dominated the Congolese economic landscape. Monetary and fiscal policies reinforced Congo's role as a mineral exporter and earner of foreign valuta with a positive – but as yet undetermined – contribution to make to Belgium's balance of payments. Belgium's various connections to Congo did not end abruptly with the latter's sudden achievement of independence. Bilateral development aid and technical assistance institutions rose from the ashes of the colonial administration, poorly conceived and ill-fated attempts at interference in Congo's internal affairs continued until 1966 (only to be replaced by ambivalent but active support for Mobutu's kleptocracy), and Belgian companies only gradually lost their grip on the country's mineral resources. Over the years, however, the (limited) mark the colonial past had left on the metropole eroded until it had all but disappeared by the late 1980s.

Belgian colonialism emerges from La Belgique et le Congo as a phenomenon which failed to significantly influence metropolitan economic and political life. Social and cultural issues (which fall outside the scope of the book) aside, such a conclusion would ideally be based on an assessment of the colonial factor in a broader range of metropolitan debates and developments transcending the colonial sphere, such as the country's monetary and trade policies, European economic integration, the position of the church and ‘humanitarian’ pressure groups and the evolution of politico-economic elites. Nonetheless, Guy Vanthemsche delivers a thoughtful and sober analysis of his subject, lucidly written and grounded in a thorough knowledge of the available sources and literature. Elements of synthesis are combined with new research based on an extensive range of Belgian and foreign archival sources. This new research cannot (nor is it intended to) conceal the large remaining gaps in our historical knowledge. However, until much more work is undertaken on the metropolitan aspects of Belgian colonialism La Belgique et le Congo will stand up as a most authoritative status quaestionis.

It is to be doubted that a similar status will befall Frans Buelens's Congo 1885–1960. Though supposedly a financial and economic history of Congo, Buelens's work is also squarely metropolitan in focus: its chief purpose is the calculation of returns to investment of companies registered at the Brussels stock exchange which had Congo as their main area of activity. This calculation is embedded in different layers of ‘context’: the outer layer consists of three chronological chapters sketching some of Congo's major political and economic developments up to 1960, which the author, a trained economist, approaches in an embarrassingly naive fashion. The second layer, making up the bulk of the book's contents, is a discussion of the genesis and evolution of the major companies in Buelens's data base. These are treated in an encyclopaedic fashion, with an overview of each company's capital structure, the constitution of its board, its main field of activity, portfolio, financial growth and the evolution and distribution of profits. Unfortunately, many trees do not a forest make: while certain patterns do emerge from this long list of company life-stories, synthesis and analysis are lacking. The final and shortest chapter is the actual core of the ‘argument’ and demonstrates unambiguously that the profitability of ‘Congolese’ companies, spearheaded by the mining concerns, was markedly in excess of that of their Belgian counterparts.

Despite its lack of focus – the author is torn between a desire to account for the ‘Congolese tragedy’ and his fondness for dissecting complex financial structures – Congo 1885–1960 contains much valuable information, some of which deserves closer scrutiny. The uneven distribution of profits, elevated directors' fees, interlocking directorships and the widespread use of (colonial) government guarantees calls for a closer analysis of the managerial elite's relation to imperialism and the colonial government. The surprisingly large share of the value of the Brussels stock market made up by ‘Congolese’ shares (rising from 26.11 per cent in 1928 to a record of 43.87 per cent in 1955) also goes some way towards counterbalancing Vanthemsche's more modest assessment of Congo's economic impact, and should be read side by side with Delpelchin's argument on the ‘transformation’ of this capital after Congo's independence. Finally, there is the striking observation that the size and profitability of Belgian investments in Congo was never greater than during the decade preceding the latter's independence. Unfortunately Buelens's failure to engage with any of the scholarly debates to which such observations can be linked leaves their interpretation entirely up to the reader.