behind the cover

Title: Doing Business with Germans - Their Perception, Our Perception

Author: Sylvia Schroll-Machl

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

My opinion: First of all I have to say that I am German. I read this book for an intercultural course during my studies. After reading it I had the feeling that being German is the greatest punishment one can get on this planet. On the other hand as a German you know that you are like the Germans described in the book. But let me start at the beginning.

The book started with an introduction of what information about Germans are in the book and why there should be a book about German behaviour. After that there is a chapter of culture standards. Question like what culture standards are generated are answered here. The main part of the book is about the German culture standards. Each standard has a description, recommendations of how to deal with that, pros and cons of each culture standard and a historical background.

During the description of each standard there were lots of example situations to emphasize the point just made. Especially in the beginning I felt so sorry for the non-Germans in these examples because I could see what went wrong but at the same time I knew I wouldn't react differently if I was that German person. To the end of the book it got a lot easier to look neutrally at those situations.

Still I never really lost the feeling that being German is seen as a bad thing. Therefore I enjoyed reading the pros and cons of the culture standards. It made me feel better of my nationality. The pros were really positive and were able to show the good sites.

I loved reading the recommendations of how to deal with the standards. I think putting them into action really improves one's intercultural competences.

I can recommend reading this book to everyone who likes to know why Germans act the way they do. With reading this book I think everyone can understand our actions better because our motives behind it get explained.

On the other hand I can recommend this book to all Germans to understand why so many non-Germans think about us in such a bad way.

I like reading the book even though I got a little depressed after reading it. I still would do it again and I also think I will remember some of the recommendations when I am confronted with intercultural situations.

I grant 5 out of 5 stars.