Check Out La Place De La Concorde Suisse Devised By John McPhee Offered In Book

and fascinating, as are all of McPhee's books, I only wish this one was longer, Sometimes, you get a miraculous chance to have your cake and eat it too, My personal highwater mark is Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, a French arthouse movie with impeccable credentials that just happened to show Emmanuelle Béart nude for about half of itsrunning minutes.
It's completely justified, given that the story is about the relationship between the artist and his model, Anything else would have been dishonest, don't you see But if you're a leftleaning person who also likes guns, this book may go one better.
McPhee, an American journalist with a talent for finding good stories, describes a society based on unexceptionable ideals of peace and neutrality, which has pursued them so successfully that it hasn't been involved in a war with another country since.
He then spends the book arguing, with considerable plausibility, that Switzerland has only been able to afford such highflown ideals by developing an extraordinarily ferocious parttime militia and arming itself to the teeth.


It's depressing news if you believe in turning the other cheek, But if you're more a believer into doing unto others as they would do unto you but doing it first, you're going to like his message.
McPhee has had a fine time as an observer with the Swiss Army, and tells you all about the ingenious ways in which the Swiss have learned to use their country's unusual topography to maximal advantage.
The Alps, all on their own, form a brilliant first line of defence there are only a few ways into Switzerland from most directions, and all the passes, tunnels and bridges are

mined so that they can be blown to pieces at the touch of a button.
There are supposed to be concealed military facilities everywhere, most of them buried in those same mountains, If we're to believe what he's telling us, your average blank Swiss rock face has at least a couple of camouflaged doors, which can be hiding anything from entrances to subterranean hospitals, to heavy artillery, to stateoftheart fighterbombers.
And all deployable at a moment's notice,

I admit to a meanspirited inner voice that's urging me to be skeptical, All of this is supposed to be classified, it says, so maybe his figures are inflated he seems to have got very friendly with his hosts, and as far as I can see takes everything they tell him at face value.
Maybe they thought he'd be a handy conduit for some proSwiss propaganda, But I'm ordering Doubting Thomas to keep his mouth shut, A politically correct version of Team America: World Police with better hardware: how can you resist that I hope every word of it is true.



This is the most lighthearted of McPhee's ouevre perhaps his only book where he is so often going for laughs.


If you are unfamiliar with John McPhee, this might be a great place to start, This is one of his shortest books, and definitely the lightest, His choice to explain the Swiss army by hanging around a group of lowranking, poorlyperforming soldiers turns out to have brilliant, as it gives him ample opportunity to both explain and skewer the institution.
That said, he comes across as a clear admirer of the Swiss and their approach to foreign policy, which he describes as the 'porcupine principle' roll up and brandish your quills in response to any threat.


I should think many of the details of the book are by now out of date, but it's an immensely enjoyable read.
Actual ./

Quite an interesting book to understand Swiss mentality through its army, The book was written in the's which means parts of the book is not uptodate, The book already assumed a wide knowledge of the country and its customs, which makes it hard to read unless you are Swiss or live here for a couple of years.
I wouldn't recommend this book to most people, Anyone who has ever traveled in Switzerland cannot help but to have remarked upon the overwhelming tranquility of the country.
But this tranquility is illusory, As John McPhee writes in La Place de la Concorde Suisse, a rich journalistic study of the Swiss Army's role in Swiss society, "there is scarcely a scene in Switzerland that is not ready to erupt in fire to repel an invasive war.
" With a population smaller than New Jersey's, Switzerland has a standing army of,ready to be mobilized in less thanhours.
The Swiss Army, known in this country chiefly for its little red pocketknives, is so quietly efficient at the arts of war that the Israelis carefully patterned their own military on the Swiss model.
You'll understand why after reading this outstanding book, It had been a while since Id read any McPhee who is somehow still alive as of August, but what a pleasure to reexperience his writing style: a keen eye, apt descriptions, perfectly chosen adjectives, engrossing digressions, an unerring sentence rhythm, all adding up to the smoothest and most readable paragraphs in the world.
He wrote this look at the unique place that the universal military has in Swiss society in, so its a bit out of date, but when reading its easy to forget the time gap, since just as much of the page time is spent on the wonders of the Swiss mountains as on the lives of the citizensoldiers hes following around or the precise details of all the tricks and traps and contingency plans theyve layered around the landscape.
To be frank I will read him write about nearly anything, but the way he describes this living embodiment of the saying “an armed society is a polite society” will make you think a lot about the many parallels and divergences between Switzerland and other countries like the US, Israel, or other neighboring European countries who dont quite have their acts together theres a lot of France jokes in the same way.
I would love an update, A typically McPheeian account of the Swiss Army, which has managed to keep its country out of wars for at least the lastyearsno mean feat when you consider that most of the neighboring countries have been at each other's throats for at least half of thoseyears okay, it's a rough estimate.
Written with McPhee's usual bonedry humor and laced with the kinds of McPheestyle factoids that you can use to spice up a particularly dull Thanksgiving dinner, it's a provocative little book that actually makes you think about some things that you'd never really thought about thinking about before.
My favorite John McPhee book to date, Eh on reread, may not finish, Swiss army. Wellwritten but pretty dull. Long before the phenomenal success of books like "Longitude" and "Cod", John McPhee perfected the art of the 'single topic in depth' book, in many cases expanding on his trademark long New Yorker essays.
In "La Place de la Concorde Suisse", he digs below the picturepostcard prettiness and deceptive blandness of Switzerland and its people to deliver a fascinating and slightly sinister portrait of the Swiss Army.


One of his most interesting books, written before he gave himself over to the fascination with geology that has inspired many of his more recent efforts.


To say that McPhee writes well is a gross understatement, He is the literary father of Malcolm Gladwell, with the same characteristic ability to take an apparently abstruse topic and write about it with extraordinary lucidity, weaving a fascinating story that draws the reader in and holds the attention right to the end.


If you haven't read any of McPhee's work, this would a good book to start with, Other favorites of mine include "The Crofter and the Laird", "The Headmaster", or either of the collections "Giving Good Weight" and "sitelinkThe John McPhee Reader".
When John McPhee picks a subject for a book, you can rest assured that he will cover that subject in detail.
So, when John chooses to write about the Swiss Army, you know we're gonna learn lots, The Swiss Army is an all volunteer organization where all males betweenanddo a National Guard like duty so that they will be ready to defend their homeland from invasion.
McPhee's picture is complete and detailed, We see that not all citizens take this seriously, and that the few that do make sure that their little corner of Switzerland is defended.
Citizen/soldiers are assigned tasks in their home area defending passes and bridges, and preparing in some instances to raze those bridges to keep invaders at bay.
This is a fascinating view of a unique method of homeland defense, .