The Xenophobe's Guide to the Dutch (Xenophobe's Guides) Paperback – 25 July 2008

A well written, easy to read overview of our Dutch cousins. Wildly humorous in places but always informative . A good book I would recommend to all.

I work in a company headquartered in Netherlands and thus have visited the country many times and have many Dutch co-workers and friends. It projects sympathetic yet objective picture with excellent observations and insights. It's a great book to understand the country and its people, but it is not meant to be a comprehensive resource for a potential expatriate. Finally, comment in a truly Dutch fashion- it's the cheapest guide I could find and therefore is an excellent value for money.

After absolutely slating 'Why the Dutch are Different' for being way too long, far too dull and almost entirely lacking in humour, I thought it was time to balance that out with examination of the Dutch from the 'Xenophobe's Guide' series. I've read other guides from the series a long time ago - in fact, I might well have read the Dutch one when I first started working with an Anglo-Dutch company many years ago - but it was worth another read.I'm torn on this one between 2 points and 3 and have decided - for a change - to be charitable. It certainly squeezes a lot of observation into a very small book and shoe-horns some very wry observations in without going all out for every possible joke. It is pretty superficial though - it's the easy and obvious stuff that you'll learn about. The outer layers of the onion are clearly displayed but little attempt seems to be made to get into the why instead of the what.The author is described rather bizarrely in the end-notes as 'African' which is more than a little ambiguous (I think he's actually South African which is a rather special and perhaps atypical type of African. There's a risk that asking a South African about the Dutch is like asking an Australian about the British).If you already know the Dutch ways of living, attitudes, sense of humour etc then there's plenty in this that rings true. If you've never been there and don't know Dutch people, I'm less sure that it will hit home in the same way. Thankfully the author doesn't feel the need to go into tedious detail about long ago history, instead focusing on the kind of things you're likely to observe and notice.The book is overdue for an update - mentioning as it does that Queen's day is at the end of April. The Queen abdicated in 2013 and now they have King's day instead (around the same time - for Willem Alexander's actual birthday - the old Queen's day was actually the Queen Mother's birthday, I believe).Quite a few reviewers have commented that some of the humour is offensive to Dutch people. If they are themselves Dutch and they are offended, then that's very unfortunate. If - as I suspect - many of them are not Dutch but are doing the very on-trend thing of taking offence on behalf of other people, then I offer this quote from the book "Tolerance is not simply a virtue, it is a national duty." It's quite hard to offend a Dutch person - they really are very thick skinned and tolerant which makes them such a joy to work with and to have as your friends.

I've worked with the Dutch for years and I'm really enjoying this read! Highly informative and humorous.I haven't finished this (very concise!) little book yet, but have already invested in another one for a friend. Got my Dutch boss to have a little read of a few pages yesterday, and he was instantly laughing and nodding in agreement - he wants to borrow it soon as I'm done!Well recommended!

I like these guides, they are informative and entertaining.Interesting information about the people of the Netherlands, how they see themselves and how others see them. Always something to learn which you didn't realise.

Although I left Holland more than 40 years ago I recognised everything in this book, and laughed out loud repeatedly. A few idiosyncrasies the author didn't mention: being called 'ordinary' is the highest praise; at birthday assemblies people will congratulate the birthday person's relatives ("gefeliciteerd met je broer") and tolerance only goes as far as they can stick a label on you. So if you're a black, gay, diabled Muslim single mother, you'll be accepted, but if like me you're an artistic solitary introvert you'll be met by blank incomprehension and are better off in England. Still, in terms of politics, equality and social provision etc Holland is an admirable place

I had to laugh about certain Dutch traits etc. described in this book, being Dutch myself it's interesting to see how other people see us. There was a few historical things that I didn't know about The Netherlands.

Some things in the book I recognise but even more things I did not recognise or agreed with at all.