
"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 SunTimes "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