Maximillien de Lafayette?s ?United States & The World Face To Face?: One of the best books in a decade!
Telling the Yanks how to behave themselves in other countries is something that most Europeans would love to do.
By Nigel Huntington, Critic for the European Journal
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Do you believe you are worldly, attuned to the world and its changing mores, and just one dashing person who can manage anywhere? That?s what I used to think about myself until United States and the World Face to Face came my way. I am not sure I am exactly happy about reading it ? my self esteem is slightly reduced and naturally one of my superior mind does not enjoy that ? but the usefulness of the learned tome, which is also extremely amusing, outweighs the insult to my ego.
It is a rather big book, almost seven hundred pages, so I decided to browse the table of contents first. But after a few minutes of that I succumbed to the inevitable and dived right in. My first encounter was a part that was telling Americans what to do, in no uncertain manner. I rather enjoyed that. Telling the Yanks how to behave themselves in other countries is something that most Europeans would love to do. But Old Nigel, I thought, does not need instruction on how to deal with Italians, French, or even Japanese. He knows how to get a meubl?, should it be necessary, though naturally he prefers staying with friends for free, and he knows what food to order. Tipping properly is second nature, and surely he does not need to be told what Europeans or Asians or Middle-Eastern think about Americans. So I went on, rather smugly, enjoying the parts about nudity, dating, and managing the rising tide of violence in women who batter their husbands. But here I came across a significant segment ? what to do if you want to date an American woman and take her out in style? You see, I thought I knew. But the information provided proved to me that I did have a lot to learn? so I decided to keep the huge volume by my bedside and study the subject in depth.
Maximillien de Lafayette?s no fear of man or beast
But as I continued browsing, I realized that taking the book with you on your trips may be even more valuable. The ?best and worst? lists would tell you where to eat, where to stay, and what to do in almost every city you could think of. Given by a world traveller like Maximillien de Lafayette, and meticulously researched, the information is invaluable during trips taken for business or vacation. The political issues are handled in great depth, and much of it extremely controversial, something that de Lafayette seems to do in all his books, obviously having no fear of Man or Beast. Of course his readers expect it; he is known for breaking barriers and dealing with taboo subjects. For example, I was stunned by his honest treatment of the Middle East, an area he knows first hand. The fun, for me, is in the diversity of the subjects. TV, politics, entertainment, great singers of jazz and cabaret, the best hotels and restaurants in the world, odd people, influential people, the most elegant hairdos of the year, magnificent women and eligible men, with surveys of what they want when it comes to just about everything from sex to university degrees. It is not possible to describe everything. You will just have to look at this book yourself, treating it as a guide to our changing universe.