Survival Kit for Overseas Living: For Americans Planning to Live and Work Abroad Book

For all its advertised open-mindedness and medium-sized list of references, the work has very little to do with any other opinion but the author's.

After reading my way past Chater 2, I was expecting a standard, albeit original at its time of publishing, self-help. Well, not a dozen pages later it deftly turned into a structured and referenced approach to culture and stereotyping that seems more in line with the number of times this book itself has been referenced in my Management interculturel textbook.

My elitist self was positively aflutter.

That is not to say that the book doesn't offer practical advice. I would go as far as saying that you can skip Ch4-10. From Ch11 onwards, the author outlines a wide array of pertinent common sense advice. There is Ch14, which includes an extensive list of topics to focus on/talk about/research to gain a wider perspective of the culture, and Ch15-16 which take a practical approach to Culture Shock that I've never seen repeated, adressing length, symptoms and reactions - quite accurately, too.