LA Place De LA Concorde Suisse

La Place de la Concorde Suisseis John McPhee's rich, journalistic study of the Swiss Army's role in Swiss society. The Swiss Army is so quietly efficient at the art of war that the Isrealis carefully patterned their own military on the Swiss model. John McPheeis the author of more than 25 books, includingAnnals of the Former World, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction in 1999. He has been a staff writer atThe New Yorkersince 1965 and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. McPhee'sEncounters with the ArchdruidandThe Curve of Binding Energywere both nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. In admirable disregard for the orthodoxy of public relations, the Swiss Army chose Luc Massy to be the soldier-companion of the American observer John McPhee during various exercises of a "refresher" course among the high Alps. The Swiss Army is militia, composed of 650,000 people who can be fully mobilized in less than forty-eight hours but generally pursue civilian occupations while their assault rifles repose under their beds and in closets at home. The easygoing, irreverent Massya master winemaker from the Canton de Vaudcan take the army or leave it alone. On patrol as leader of Section de Renseignments, he helps McPhee to gather his own information for a book full of wit and deft characterizationactually a portrait of Switzerland within the frame of its militia, and of the thoroughly interwined relationships between the army and the society it serves. "McPhee, in showing us as many aspects of the Swiss Army as their famous knife has blades, has produced one of his books."Edmund Fuller,The Wall Street Journal "The Swiss have avoided fighting a war for almost 500 years. To preserve that enviable record of peace, they maintain one of the world's largest armies, on a per capita basis. This paradox . . . is the core of McPhee's engagingLa Place de la Concorde Suisse."Jack Schnedler,Chicago Sun-Times "Delightful . . . What McPhee saw and learned he writes about with his inimitable light touch."Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,The New York Times "'Switzerland does not have an army,' says one of John McPhee's informants inLa Place de la Concorde Suisse.'Switzerland is an army' . . . McPhee put his reader inside Switzerland with elegance and insight."Jonathan Steinberg,The New York Times Book Review

John McPhee is the author of twenty-six books, including Annals of the Former World, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1965 and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

"McPhee, in showing us as many aspects of the Swiss Army as their famous knife has blades, has produced one of his books."—Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

"The Swiss have avoided fighting a war for almost 500 years. To preserve that enviable record of peace, they maintain one of the world's largest armies, on a per capita basis. This paradox . . . is the core of McPhee's engaging La Place de la Concorde Suisse."Jack Schnedler, Chicago Sun-Times

"Delightful . . . What McPhee saw and learned he writes about with his inimitable light touch."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"'Switzerland does not have an army,' says one of John McPhee's informants in La Place de la Concorde Suisse. 'Switzerland is an army' . . . McPhee put his reader inside Switzerland with elegance and insight."—Jonathan Steinberg, The New York Times Book Review