Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience

Volk's translation evokes the flavor of Carroll's French in an entertaining, informative book. The author is a U.S. citizen of French origin, an anthropologist and teacher at Oberlin College, who lived on a Micronesian island and wrote Nokoru Stories , about social customs there. Her inter-cultural experiences form the text of this illustrative, often witty book about why the French and the Americanseven when fluent in both languagescan confound each other with what seems uncivil behavior. Carroll explains cultural misunderstandings on such diverse areas as party manners, child-rearing, privacy, using the telephone and, most important, friendship. The examples are eye-opening and all-encompassing, a vital source for learning how to establish amity not only between the U.S. and France but among all the world's nations. (Dec.)