The Europeans

Rating:
Summary: Chapter 7-The Baffling Americans
Review: 1/14/02 This book by Luigi Barzini(ISBN 0671245783)copyright 1983 entitled "The Europeans"begins with 1. The Elusive Europeans followed by Chapters 2. The Imperturbable British 3. The Mutable Germans 4. The Quarrelsome French 5. The Flexible Italians 6. the Careful Dutch and then the last chapter ,the "Europeans neighbor across the Atlantic Ocean 'the colloquial 'we': 7. The Baffling Americans with info in italics such as what's on the back of our $(I checked a $1 bill and there it was on the back of F45595619Q"Novus Ordo Seclorum"('the world & history begins with us')..also how our 'forever searching american consumer' can change the economics in many a city, state or country: a. (e.g. the effect on a certain un-named country when``` mahogoney``` went out of fashion as the symbol of bougeois affluence and good taste or b. how even in French provinces at the turn of the last century were influenced by americans choice in ```Champagne(dry instead of sweet)```. It is hard to believe the author of this 1983 non-fiction,Luigi Barzini was born (in Milan) 12/21/1908 not that people don't often get more contemporary as they grow older but there are no 'cliches' in what I've read from this 'borrowed' book and since he has several books to his credit,it is also to his credit that he didn't let hapless writing habits creep in.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging and informative
Review: I found this at a local used bookstore and bought it on a whim. It is an ambitious but breezy analysis of the peoples and pasts of the nascent European Union, and how their individual national identities have formed the way they respond to one another and to the rest of the world. What makes this book especially interesting is that it was written back in the early 80s, before the Euro and really before the European Union itself was thought a likely reality, so the author approaches the possibility of an EU with some skepticism, and much of his analysis on the need for an EU is predicated on the threat of the no-longer-extant Soviet Union. Having read the book, I would have loved to meet the author--a journalist, he's witty, erudite, laconic, chatty, gossipy, sophisticated and frank--an incredibly well-traveled, multi-lingual raconteur. Yes, there are some cliches here, especially in his analysis of Americans (whom he considers alternately with affection, awe, and dismay), but he's honest about the limitations of his approach, and his assessments of European attitudes toward America are enlightening. This reads more like a memoir than serious non-fiction. Even so, and despite being twenty years out of date, the insights in this book shed light on international matters today. I thoroughly enojoyed this.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging and informative
Review: I found this at a local used bookstore and bought it on a whim. It is an ambitious but breezy analysis of the peoples and pasts of the nascent European Union, and how their individual national identities have formed the way they respond to one another and to the rest of the world. What makes this book especially interesting is that it was written back in the early 80s, before the Euro and really before the European Union itself was thought a likely reality, so the author approaches the possibility of an EU with some skepticism, and much of his analysis on the need for an EU is predicated on the threat of the no-longer-extant Soviet Union. Having read the book, I would have loved to meet the author--a journalist, he's witty, erudite, laconic, chatty, gossipy, sophisticated and frank--an incredibly well-traveled, multi-lingual raconteur. Yes, there are some cliches here, especially in his analysis of Americans (whom he considers alternately with affection, awe, and dismay), but he's honest about the limitations of his approach, and his assessments of European attitudes toward America are enlightening. This reads more like a memoir than serious non-fiction. Even so, and despite being twenty years out of date, the insights in this book shed light on international matters today. I thoroughly enojoyed this.