Rating: 
Summary: As Well Arranged as a Swiss Army Knife
Review: This book -diverging from the writer's "Assembling California" or the omnibus which include "Pieces of a Frame"), finds its own unsuspecting terrain and subject in the days in the lives of the Swiss Army. Prefidious, deft, exacting, and precise, this group, decentralized and civilian-based in th semineutral country demonstrates several aspects as to why the Swiss play an instrumental part in European and world history (Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts of the World unite!); being prepared here is not so much a motto as High Art itself. There are descriptions of caverns storing entire food supplies for years (in end in the event of the catastrophic), highways where explosives remain hidden, and exactly the manner under which Swiss eat their lunch. Each chapter, always a surprise and of interest, holds togetherin the books compactness like an individual instrument in a Swiss Army Knife. What makes this significant is the way in which such example can (as with the author's other excellent studies; see e.g., "The Headmaster") are noteworthy and that beyond Thucydides or Clausowitz may prove enduring (i.e., knowing why as opposed merely what armies are for is of note)
Rating: 
Summary: Prose As Precise As A Swiss Watch
Review: This is the first book I've read by Mr. McPhee, and I really enjoyed it. The author started out as a journalist and a lot of his pieces originally appeared in "The New Yorker." This background is apparent in the way he writes. He picks an unusual topic, or at least he looks at something from an unusual angle, and he is very economic with his words. This is not a criticism. You don't feel that you are being "shortchanged." Being linquistically economic allows Mr. McPhee to cram an awful lot of interesting information into a short book, in this case just 150 pages. We learn a lot about the workings of the Swiss Army and how it permeates the entire society. We get insight into the Swiss mentality and their philosophy of "neutrality." We also get a little history.....both concerning WWII and going back further, back to the days of the Swiss mercenaries. The famous Swiss precision even comes into play in the construction of bomb shelters: "....the Swiss started building one-bar (i.e.-being able to withstand a certain amount of pressure caused by an explosion) shelters to protect the extremely high percentage of the population that might survive explosions but without the shelter would be destroyed like the citizens of Hamburg and Dresden. Swiss calculations showed that something as thick as, say, a ten-bar shelter would be of negligible extra value, for the increased area of protection would be slight rather than proportional; for underground hospitals and command posts, three-bar construction was chosen." And even though Mr. McPhee is never wasteful with words, this doesn't stop him from occasionally inserting his dry sense of humor. Regarding the Swiss propensity for planning for all contingencies, and not being caught with their pants down, the author writes: "It would be very un-Swiss to wake up tomorrow to yesterday's threat and then attempt to do something about it. If Pearl Harbor had somehow been in Switzerland, a great deal of Japanese aluminum would be scattered all over the Alps." Now that I've dipped my toe in the water, I'm looking forward to reading a lot more by Mr. McPhee!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and enlightening
Review: When I first read this book (and for a long time thereafter), I had no idea who John McPhee was. Although I enjoyed his idiosyncratic and engaging style, it was the subject matter of this brief study that interested me most. I've read a couple of McPhee's other books since, and enjoyed those, too. But this one is my favorite, because it's still the subject, rather than the author, that intrigues me most.It's been said that Switzerland is not a country with an army, but rather an army with a country. McPhee shows us how the militia-army concept -- the every-citizen-as-soldier idea that has been emulated by Israel, for example -- plays out in the lives of Swiss citizens like Luc Massy, McPhee's host on a series of military training exercises. The exercises are more like camping trips for the soldiers, but McPhee shows that behind the breezy attitudes, national defense is a deadly serious business for the Swiss nation and people. Switzerland's pastoral countryside may never look quite the same again, once you realize that nearly every bridge has been fitted with explosives, the faster to destroy them in case of invasion. That any snow-capped peak may hide artillery emplacements or entire squadrons of fighter jets. That a silent glacier (like the title Place de la Concorde Suisse) may become a front-line airfield at the first sign of trouble. And that, of course, most every farmhouse contains firearms and men and women trained to use them. Since this book was first published in 1983, there has been a spate of books about the Swiss in World War Two. Coming as it did before that storm, 'La Place de la Concorde Suisse' is a useful way to get a feeling for the Swiss militia system, uncolored (pro or con) by the strong feelings that arose a decade or so later. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a look at Switzerland's unique national defense system in practice.
Rating:
Summary: Not just chocolate and cuckoo clock making peaceniks
Review: While most folks assume being neutral means being peaceful, McPhee does a great job of showing how neutrality requires great vigilance and dedication. He also shows how while there are some Swiss who view military service as a holiday or an inconvenience, they understand (to some extent) the purpose of what they've been forced to do. I perhaps would have liked more specifics, but the Swiss seem pretty tight-lipped in that department, so I can't hold it against the book. One drawback I did find was that statements in French or German weren't translated. My French is too rudimentary for what McPhee left in the original.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating study, suddenly timely again
Review: With the volunteer military facing staffing problems, and with the first tentative trial balloons about restoring the draft being lofted, this book offers insight into a fascinating alternative. The Swiss system is superior to a lottery-based conscript army because it encompasses everyone, not just the unlucky and the young. That not only makes it fairer, but provides protection for democratic values against the standing professional army that the Framers feared. Read this book together with Gary Hart's excellent book "The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People" (Free Press 1998), which argues for a Swiss-style approach in America.
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