Review Close encounters of a cultural kind: Lessons for business, negotiation and friendship (a review)

Richard Lewis, Chair of Richard Lewis Communications in the UK, world-leading intercultural consultant and creator of the Lewis model of intercultural interaction is the author of a number of influential books on the role of culture in international business, notably When Cultures Collide. His newest book is different. Part memoir and part experiences of the people he has met on his travels around the world as a language teacher and cultural consultant, its forty-nine short chapters offer vignettes of friends and colleagues and people of different nationalities he has met and dealt with in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greenland, China, Japan, North and South Korea, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Tunisia, Belize and the USA. What is common to each is the stories of individuals in intercultural situations and environments and how they behave. It is a rich store of reading materials written in a conversational style and accessible, I would suggest, to teachers, students of CEFR B2+ and above and an excellent source of critical incidents for use in cultural training.