Customer Reviews

Living and Working in America: A Survival Handbook (Living and Working Guides)

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Previous to my move to Spain I bought David Hampshire's "Living and Working in Spain" and found it to be an invaluable aid and an excellent source of information. I'm contemplating a move to the US and so was very pleased and interested to see that David Hampshire has published a similar book for America. I wasn't disappointed with the book and again found it packed with useful information, and important time and money saving tips. this edition looks as if it too will prove invaluable to me as I find my way around America and the Americans. At least with "Living and Working in America" I've had all my questions answered so far and I feel I'm as prepared as I ever will be!

I've read all the books on living and working in the States and this is probably the best book there is! The amount of information it contains is staggering - not only is there information on all the essential stuff - like visas and finding a job etc. - but everything else you might need to know, such as shopping, driving, finding a school for the kids, banking - even what to do in your time off. If you need to know anything about the US you will find it in this book. The book is also very truthful - telling you good as well as bad - and also very amusing in places, which might not suit everybody. Generally though I would recommend it to anyone.

When David Hampshire wrote his first book "Living and Working in Switzerland", he had some very good practical information for foreigners new to the country. There were a lot of prejudices and distorted views (most Swiss are rich, the country is sort of made of chocolate, banks and cheese, etc.), but there were so many practical information not easily found elsewhere in the country. With this new title the good practical information is now almost completely lost among his prejudices and negative views of America. The book will certainly almost scare the naive reader. The data is not always accurate and he seemed to have ignored the current economic boom in America (albeit his updated version). Worse, he seems to be totally ignorant of many aspects of life and work in America and of the American society itself. He has now also written books about buying homes in some southern European countries and about living and working in Australia and Britain (Canada was skipped...). Hopefully the good things of his Switzerland book will prevail somewhere in his writing, while the others will eventually disappear. Yet this one book on America shows quite the opposite. It should have instead been titled "What every patriotic and single-minded British person thinks of America, the ex-colony."

A really useful, practical guide giving realistic and balanced views of what to expect from the States.Invaluable for those with no previous knowledge on which to base important decisions.

This book does have some bits of good information (usually these are practical information like "How to...") contained in it. However when you reach the sections on American culture it is very easy to find out biases creeping out of the book. These comments are written from a largely British or Commonwealth perspective (which is not surprising since Mr Hampshire himself is British). In the assessment about the American electoral system Mr Hampshire thinks the (continental) European proportional representative system is superior to "Winners take all" system that America uses. Ironically in his home country the Parliament (forget the Scottish and Welsh assemblies) is elected using the "First past the post" system - which is identical to the American electoral system.

The bottom line is: provided you are from New Zealand, Australia or Britain have a look at this book. If you are from countries with minimal British cultural heritage such as Russia, Germany, Indonesia or Taiwan, forget it. Many books about practical tips to live in America has been published in many EFL and ESL (English as a Foreign/Secondary Language) countries (using English or their own languages) without this type of naked biases. And secondly you won't have to figure out what cricket is before you understand life in America!