La Place de la Concorde Suisse
ISBN10: 0374519323
ISBN13: 9780374519322
Trade Paperback
160 Pages
$19.00
CA$25.00
In admirable disregard for the orthodoxy of public relations, the Swiss Army chose Luc Massy to be the soldier-companion of the American observer John McPhee during various exercises of a "refresher" course among the high Alps. The Swiss Army is militia, composed of 650,000 people who can be fully mobilized in less than forty-eight hours but generally pursue civilian occupations while their assault rifles repose under their beds and in closets at home. The easygoing, irreverent Massy—a master winemaker from the Canton de Vaud—can take the army or leave it alone. On patrol as leader of Section de Renseignments, he helps McPhee to gather his own information for a book full of wit and deft characterization—actually a portrait of Switzerland within the frame of its militia, and of the thoroughly interwined relationships between the army and the society it serves.
Reviews
Praise for La Place de la Concorde Suisse
"McPhee, in showing us as many aspects of the Swiss Army as their famous knife has blades, has produced one of his books."—Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal
"The Swiss have avoided fighting a war for almost 500 years. To preserve that enviable record of peace, they maintain one of the world's largest armies, on a per capita basis. This paradox . . . is the core of McPhee's engaging La Place de la Concorde Suisse."Jack Schnedler, Chicago Sun-Times
"Delightful . . . What McPhee saw and learned he writes about with his inimitable light touch."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
"'Switzerland does not have an army,' says one of John McPhee's informants in La Place de la Concorde Suisse. 'Switzerland is an army' . . . McPhee put his reader inside Switzerland with elegance and insight."—Jonathan Steinberg, The New York Times Book Review
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
Place de la Concorde Suisse, La
The Swiss have not fought a war for nearly five hundred years, and are determined to know how so as not to.
In Italy, it has been said of the Swiss Army, "I didn't know they had one." When...
About the author
John McPhee
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