Good book on the Swiss Army.

Only a 150 pgs and obviously dated. Still the prose is stellar and gives an American an insight to a radically different ethoes. McPhee makes an unstated case that Switzerland is as close to Sparta as the modern world can get.

A really fun, breezy book about the Swiss Army. It's written almost like a travel book, and can be read in a day or two.

Switzerland was about as neutral in those days as had been Mongolia under Genghis Khan… They were so chillingly belligerent that even if they were destroyed in battle they had been known in the same moment to win a war. One afternoon in mid-Renaissance, a few hundred Swiss who were outnumbered fifteen to one elected not to run away but to wade across a river and break into the center of their opposition, where all of them died, but not before they had slaughtered three thousand of their French enemies. The French Army was so unnerved that it struck its tents and fled. —John McPhee, La Place de la Concorde Suisse

The Swiss are wont to say, John McPhee tells us in n  La Place de la Concorde Suissen, “Switzerland does not have an army. Switzerland is an army.”

The country intermingles two cultures: the Suisse-romand are thoroughly French or Italian; while Suisse-allemand are German. Yet each partakes of the others to create that indefinable Swiss character. Perhaps, McPhee suggests, it is the defining background of each Swiss man’s life, the required military service.

The knife every soldier is issued today is jacketed with quilted gray aluminum, has one blade, a can opener, a bottle opener, a hole-punch, two screwdrivers and a corkscrew. On one side is a small red shield bearing a white cross… Officers included, everyone in the Swiss Army carries a Swiss Army knife.

Women may volunteer for the Swiss Army; if they do, they serve fifteen years doing “housewife work.” They drive trucks, for example, or operate radios. But men who refuse to serve (there are a small number each year) go to jail. Failure to be accepted into service is also considered shameful, and like serving time for conscientious objection, closes professional and financial doors to the disgraced party.

There is now a petition in circulation that calls for an initiative to abolish the army altogether. An initiative to abolish chocolate would stand an equal chance.

There are remarkably few graffiti in the country (although there is a famous one, Lord Byron’s name in his own hand, in a dungeon where he was prisoner), and electric sensors watch parking lots, urinals and hotel mattresses. The sensors signal availability, flush as needed, and turn out lights when you go to bed. “In Switzerland, everything works.”

In the Swiss Alps are countless airstrips, concealed hangers, mined bridges and clear-cut fields of fire. It is often the case, McPhee informs us, that the engineer who creates a strategic structure will then be given the task of planning its destruction. The Alps are not the barrier to invasion that they once were—the Swiss Army must supply the balance now, adapting to newer technologies.

But the Alps are still formidable, particularly when supplied, valley and town, canton and city, with the ready defense of the Swiss Army.

Crystallizing and recrystallizing, the ice among the peaks collects and compacts itself into the Grosser Aletsch-gletscher, the supreme glacier of Europe, with avenues of ice coming in from six or eight directions to conjoin in … Konkordiaplatz, La Place de la Concorde Suisse… This place that will never need defending represents what the Swiss defend.

This book assembles tiny elements, one by one, to create something as intricate and precise—and though it is over thirty years old, as timely—as a Swiss watch.

This book was engrossing from beginning to end. McPhee brings everything to life. It's like going on vacation just by reading.

Suffered greatly from McPhee writing himself out of so many scenes. In doing so, the narration fails to capture a sense of setting. Much of the Swiss landscape rendered instead as a string of city names, mountain names, river names, bridge names, etc.

That said, about half of the book was sparkling and well-written; it only stumbled when the expository voice got in the way of scene and character.

Classic McPhee in style ... there's much I had to learn about the Swiss. But the guy writes like the desert waters: lots of understated expanses occasionally punctuated by astonishing revelations.

After a year of living in Switzerland, I am glad I read it now. It is a great description of the contradiction of being among a people prepared to go to war at any moment in a country that has not fought in a war for centuries. And all those weapons hidden inside the mountains - who knew!

When John McPhee picks a subject for a book, you can rest assured that he will cover that subject in detail. So, when John chooses to write about the Swiss Army, you know we're gonna learn lots. The Swiss Army is an all volunteer organization where all males between 18 and 25(26?) do a National Guard like duty so that they will be ready to defend their homeland from invasion. McPhee's picture is complete and detailed. We see that not all citizens take this seriously, and that the few that do make sure that their little corner of Switzerland is defended. Citizen/soldiers are assigned tasks in their home area-- defending passes and bridges, and preparing in some instances to raze those bridges to keep invaders at bay. This is a fascinating view of a unique method of homeland defense.

Non solo cioccolata e orologi a cucù!

Fascinating expose of the Swiss Army.

McPhee travels on manuevers with the Swiss Army in the early 80s, recounting a bit of history, the tight link between the army and elite Swiss business culture, and the thorough nature of Swiss preparation. He accompanies French-speaking Swiss scouts, though he talks to many officers as well. The scouts are not especially disciplined (not German, though they are well-trained), scouts being the place where those with trouble with authority are sent. This makes them a little cynical about the military, yet they serve and hike throughout the mountains. The book finishes well. Early on the names of soldiers, mostly French (a la Ernie Pyle's WWII accounts), of food, and, especially Swiss geographic features, are piled up relentlessly (and without a map to make it useful). McPhee can write gorgeous prose, but the serial lists here and much untranslated French did not endear me.