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For those who don't know the author, this essay is by the great, late British historian Tony Judt. He frequently wrote about post-war European history and, as a former Zionist, was a well-known and sometimes controversial critic of Israel.

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For more of Judt's take on how the Flanders/Wallonia split has played out, here is an out-take from Judt's acclaimed survey Postwar:

http://faroutliers.blogspot.com/2007/10/judt-on-belgian-iden...

Anyone at all interested in European history would enjoy his essays and this book. Deep and erudite, yet with an approachable narrative voice.

half-serious: is there ever a 'non-controversial' critic of anything?

I'm guessing most critics of Hitler are noncontroversial.

While true, in general use, calling someone a critic of XYZ tends to imply that there is a (mainstream) constituency that is not critical of XYZ.

Not to be pendant in, but it depends on what you mean by critic. Max Weber and Erich Fromm were critics of Marx and Freud who agreed with much of what they had to say. Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" is...well it's many things but it advocates rationality and a marriage of pure reason with experience. Ann Coulter is a critic of the Obama administration and liberalism in general.

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