Customer Reviews

What Every American Should Know About Europe: The Hot Spots, Hotshots, Political Muck-ups, Cross-Border Sniping, and Cultural Chaos of Our Transatlantic Cousins

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USA TODAY REVIEW - The Ugly American rap slapped on many U.S. travelers abroad has less to do with appearance (the enduring popularity of those his 'n' her tracksuits favored by many a trans-Atlantic flier notwithstanding) as it does with cultural ignorance.

What Every American Should Know About Europe by Melissa Rossi (Plume, $16) seeks to wise up those Americans who are considering a trip across the pond. The book is a revision of her 2005 The Armchair Diplomat on Europe written with the notion that many Europeans themselves were uninformed about the influence of the European Union.

Part tutorial, part guidebook and part trivia compendium, What Every American Should Know offers a country-by-country breakdown of "old Europe" (the 15 Western European nations that made up the EU before 2004) and "new Europe," composed of the 10 Eastern European countries admitted since then. Though it has been updated and reworked for an American audience, it's already a tad outdated given that Bulgaria and Romania, which didn't make it into the book, became the 26th and 27th members of the EU this month.

Nor does Rossi shy away from imposing the sort of stereotypes that might get an Ugly American into hot water. There are references to "gruff French," "oh-so-polite Brits" and "thoughtful Swedes." And some observations are so obvious ("Europe is entirely different from the United States, where culture is more or less homogeneous ...") that if this is news to you, maybe you should just stay home.

Still, the book is a handy mini refresher on pivotal events and people that shaped the nations of Europe -- why Ireland is divided; the basic philosophical differences between Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; what's behind chilly French-U.S. relations. It offers enough basic information that it might even prevent the "gruff French" from finding a visiting American ugly.

I'll admit: I have never been to Europe.
Second confession: Despite majoring in political science in college, I left school knowing very little about the real intricacies and tangles of history that make up this small, diverse section of the world.

When Rossi's "What Every American Should Know About Europe" came out, I sought a copy for these reasons. The bold "What every American should know..." title hooked me after her first book of the series hit the shelves, and I bought it on a whim, looking for a quick reference overview of the world and to see if the claim held water.

After digesting her brand of humor and the way she presents information often overlooked by other current affairs books, I felt it was worth the money and doubled the impact (and, saved time) of regular texts specializing in the plethora of topics she covers.

Rossi's style of writing uses humor and her snappy perspective to deliver loads of information with ease. She has a knack for making what would otherwise be garbles of boring facts fun to read, and at the end of the book, you realize you actually learned something. I still keep her past books around to reference when their various subject matters pop up in the news.

In the Europe book she covers hoards of locales and summarizes them cleverly and without hesitation to address the most sensitive topics in the region. Sprinkled throughout the books are also countless photos, maps and side-boxes to retain the attention span of even the most ADD readers. More importantly, it keeps the book - about 400 pages, sometimes seeming a little long - enjoyable and moving fast.

As for the previous comment about her politics, a reader always has to take into account that even if an author claims to not assume any bias (which I don't think Rossi does), all authors write with perspective. In my opinion, perspective gives the reader a better understanding of the material at hand, and moreover, offers interpretation to it based upon a certain train of thought.

Every situation can be looked at from innumerable angles, and it would be impossible to write about something as vast as the whole of Europe while feigning a nonsensical notion of objectivity the entire time.

Regardless, to me the book wasn't scribed in a "liberal" tone, but rather in the voice of someone who has actually traveled the region and made her own personal (and seemingly experienced) observations.

A catch with the book, as in all current affairs books, is they must be constantly updated to keep pace with the ever-shifting situations in different countries. It will still retain the historical information, however, which serves to explain much about why the countries stand - or fall - the way they do today.

I like all her "to the point" book. this one was informative (and shocking at times). Im currently reading her last one (on europe) and it's a great one too.

There is a lot of good information in this book, and it's conversational style makes for easy and sometimes enjoyable reading. But the book should have been written by someone like Rick Steves who doesn't allow his politics to infect his writing. Great Britain, for example, gets beat up a good bit for its sometimes friendliness with America in general and American Republicans in particular (with her best shots for anyone who was friendly with George W. Bush).

Unfortunately, Ms. Rossi comes across as your standard, cookie-cutter American liberal who really knows just what's going on and, as a result, talks with a sneer. Her assumed insightfulness isn't always, and given her clear biases about America, I don't know how much to trust her comments about other nations. She should have left out her running commentary. It interferes with what could otherwise have been a valuable resource.

I saw this book in a bookshop in DC on the last day of a holiday thinking it would be an outrageous and entertaining American serial character assassination of every single European country, one after the other pulverised in turn - a good read for my seven hour flight back to London the next day.

When I got on the plane and opened the book I then realised that the book was in fact a serious attempt to write an accurate guide to Europe.

It is a good journalistic romp through each of the 27 members of the European Union in turn with each country's history and politics energetically summarised.

It leaves out all other countries wholly or partly in Europe but not in the EU: Iceland, Switzerland,the whole of former Yugoslavia (except Slovenia), Turkey, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Norway.

But, like a lot of journalism written to tight news deadlines, it is littered with factual errors, particularly historical ones, and questionable judgments.

A few examples of historical errors that particularly struck me: (i)(p 57) the 'United Kingdom' was created in 1707, not 1927!;(ii)(p67) English Civil War only lasted six years not forty-eight!; (iii) (p347) Hitler took Prague and abolished Czechoslovakia in March 1939 (before his invasion of Poland and the start of World War 2 in September) not 1940 (the year he took Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France, whilst the US was distracted elsewhere); (iv) (p 126) in 1918 "all Ireland's elected politicians" were not from Sinn Fein - at the last All-Ireland elections in December 1918 Sinn Fein won 73 seats, the unionists won 26 (the 73 Sinn Fein MPs boycotted London and set up their own parliament in Dublin while the 26 unionists took up their seats in the UK parliament in London to try to keep Ireland as part of the UK).

What the book needs is a careful thorough 'fact check' for a second edition. In the meantime, only read those parts that cover things that you already know about.

Rossi's writing style is perfect and the way she has this, and her other books laid out makes for easy reading and learning. This should be on every students bookshelf. Every library as well.

Very well written but for some reasons the author missed a few important countries like Switzerland,Norway,Romania,Bulgaria,Serbia,Montenegro,Croatia,Bosnia,Iceland,Albania and also a few mini states like the Vatican,Monaco,Andorra,San Marino,Lichtenstein and lastly European Turkey and the Kaliningrad enclave..Hope that the next edition will be more complete..and will deserve a 4 stars review.

Item is as described and arrived proomptly. Excellent reference material in these changing times.

This is the third book by Ms. Rossi that I've read now. They are bursting with information and extremely readable and informative. This book gave me a quick education on the current political climates in the various countries of Europe as well as outlining each countries history, naming some of the key landmarks, and giving brief biographies of notable people both past and present. Eye-opening and fascinating.

After reading this from my library, I decided that it fit my own collection of travel books. I learned more history here than in a wealth of textbooks.