Customer Reviews

Cross-Cultural Dialogues: 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference

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As president of a cross-cultural training and consulting company, I have found this text extremely useful for providing our clients, corporate managers and executives, a quick, easy-to-read overview of the types of communication challenges that can arise in daily cross-cultural conversations. Typically, the reaction we get is "That just happened to me, but I didn't know what was going on at the time." At ERUdyne, we use the text on a regular basis. We recommend it to all our clients who are new to the global business environment, and to those who want to fine tune their skills for picking up the real message behind the words.

This book is a fun and fascinating read. Craig Storti is truly in tune with the subtleties, pitfalls and opportunities of cross-cultural dialogue. The book does not have an academic or burdensome tone; rather, it is simple to read and understand. I found it quite enjoyable, attempting to figure out (like a riddle), from each small example of a cross-cultural interaction, WHAT the "snags" or miscommunications of each scenario were. I also liked that Mr. Storti divided the book into different settings: social, workplace and business. As a student of conflict analysis and resolution, I have found (and will continue to find) this book extremely useful in my present and future work and interactions; however, anyone, from any walk of life, study, or profession should really read this book, as it would be very useful in our increasingly multi-cultural society, and our world, which is getting smaller and smaller all the time.

I teach in a community college in a small town near the Mexican border and discovered in Storti's book insights that enabled me to avoid small cultural differences that can interfere with communication. My advanced composition class studies the topic of cross-cultural communication world wide, and Storti's book is one of the major resources I make available to them in the college library. The students are fascinated by this segment of the class and like Storti's dialogues a lot.

When dealing with people overseas, the blind assumption among many Americans is that individuals from other societies possess the same value system, process information in the same way, and express themselves in the same manner as we do. This attitude, however, is almost bound to lead to hurt feelings, sour business deals, or worse. In an effort to reduce these cultural misunderstandings, Craig Storti aims to educate readers on the perils of not only inadvertantly insulting your foreign counterpart in a conversation, but of taking his or her words at face value as well. Through the study of 10 major cultures, we are able to briefly explore the psyche of such groups as Arabs, Indians, and the Japanese in order to better understand the way they see the world.

The short dialogues followed by an explanation of the conversation by Storti provides for a highly effective means of discovering how very differently human beings from contrasting cultures think and communicate on an implicit level, thereby confusing your average Joe who is at a loss to understand what actually was said.

Regardless of whether you wish to better understand one particular culture or to gain a broader understanding of major ethnic groups in general, you will surely benefit from this book.

This was a riveting read. very insightful and helpful in understanding cultural differences. I read it to learn more about american culture and found it helpful. I also learnt about many other cultures too.

It may seem that Mr. Storti's book shows other world cultures - Asian, Latin, European - through an American magnifying lens. It may be so if you are an American reader. If you're not, it gives you the chance to look at your own culture through foreign eyes. This can be a rather informative and actually liberating experience. I strongly recommend it.

The author is truly clever in the layout of this book. It is thoroughly enjoyable, as well as enlightening. This is not a book of cultural rules, but of cultural surprises.