Bennett, Milton J.
Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1998.
Gercik, Patricia. On Track with the Japanese. First Books Library (1stbooks.com), 2001.
Nees, Greg. Germany: Unraveling an Enigma. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, Inc., 2000.
Wenzhong, Hu, and Cornelius Grove. Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans. 2nd ed. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1999.
Adler, Nancy J. "Negotiating with Foreigners." In International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior. 2nd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992.
Asselin, Gilles, and Ruth Mastron. Au Contraire! Figuring out the French. Yarmouth, Me.: Intercultural Press, 2001, pp. 110-144.
Barsoux, Jean-Louis, and Peter Lawrence. "The Making of a French Manager." Harvard Business Review (July-August, 1991): 2-9.
Bell, Arthur H., W. Tracy Dillon, and Harald Becker. "German Memo and Letter Style." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 9 (April 1995): 219-227.
Berman, Paul. "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror" New York Times Magazine (23 March 2003).
Bernstein, Richard. Fragile Glory: A Portrait of France and the French. New York: Knopf, 1990, pp. 1-17, 133-145.
Brewer, W. D. "Patterns of Gesture Among the Levantine Arabs." In Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Cultures. Edited by A. Lutfiyya and C. Churchill. The Hague: Mouton Co., 1970. Also published in American Anthropologist 53 (1951): 232-237.
Carey, James W. "A Cultural Approach to Communication." Communication 2 (1975): 1-22.
Geertz, Clifford. "Linguistic Etiquette." In Sociolinguistics: Selected Readings. Edited by J. B. Pride and Janet Holmes. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1972, pp. 167-179.
Goode, Erica A. "How Culture Molds Habits of Thought," New York Times, 8 August 2000.
Hall, Edward T. "The Voices of Time" (pp. 1-19), "Culture Is Communication," and "Space Speaks." In The Silent Language. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1959.
Ishii, Satoshi, and Tom Bruneau. "Silence and Silences in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Japan and the United States." In Intercultural Communication: A Reader. Edited by Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994.
Langer, Suzanne K. "On a New Definition of 'Symbol.'" In Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951.
Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, excerpts.
Maltz, Daniel N., and Ruth A. Borker. "A Cultural Approach To Male-Female Miscommunication." In Language and Social Identity. Edited by John J. Gumperz. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982, pp. 196-216.
Ochs, Elinor. "Introduction." In Language Socialization Across Cultures. Edited by Bambi Schieffelin and Elinor Ochs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Scott, James Calvert. "Preparing Business Correspondence the British Way," The Bulletin, June 1993.
Shouby, Eleanor. "The Influence of the Arabic Language on the Psychology of the Arabs." In Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Cultures. Edited by Abdullah M. Lutfiyya and Charles Churchill. The Hague: Mouton Co., 1970, pp. 688-703.
Ulfhielm, Fredrik. "Spoken Japanese: Linguistic Influence on Work Group, Leadership, and Decision-Making." In Organization Communication: Emerging Perspectives II. Edited by Lee Thayer. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1987.
Victor, David A. "Issues of Contexting and Face-Saving in International Business Communication." In International Business Communication. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. "An American Indian Model of the Universe." In Language Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by J. B. Caroll. Cambridge: Massachussets, MIT Press, 1950, pp. 57-64.
There is no rhyme or reason as to why these books are on the suggested readings list except that former students of intercultural communication classes and your instructors liked them.*
Achebe, Chinua. A Man of the People. London: Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks, 1966.
Achebe provides a uniquely African perspective on the problems of newly emerging democracies.
*Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Alfred A Knopf Co., 1985.
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. New York: Anchor Doubleday Books, 1991.
The lives of the author, her mother, and grandmother illustrating how the lives of Chinese women changed over three generations.
Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai. New York: Penguin, 1988.
How a well-educated, financially secure Chinese woman survives the Cultural Revolution in China.
Darton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre. New York: Penguin, 1985.
An historian looks at French history like an anthropologist to learn something about the human perspective in another time and place.
Dobrinsky, Herbert C. A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs: The Ritual Practices of Syrian, Moroccan, Judeo-Spanish and Spanish and Portuguese Jews of North America. 3rd ed. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2001.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Through the recipes of a Mexican family, readers learn about their culture, their thoughts, and their beliefs.
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. New York: Penguin, 2003.
A portrait of the French peasantry.
Honchar, Oles'. The Cathedral. Washington, D.C.: St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics, 1989.
A novel by the Ukrainian writer about life in the Ukrainian countryside in the 1960s-1970s.
Hall, Edward Twitchell. The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966.
Hall, Edward Twitchell.The Silent Language. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959.
Classics in inter-cultural communication. The first looks at differences in people's use of space, and the second examines nonverbal communication.
*Hijuelos, Oscar. Empress of the Splendid Season. New York: Harper Collins, 1999.
Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989.
A Jewish woman's observations of life in Warsaw after World War II, and her move to the U.S. where she must start all over in another language.
Holm, Bill. Coming Home Crazy. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1990.
An American spends a year in China and learns about himself through the eyes of another culture.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
The story of an American missionary Family in the Belgian Congo in the late 1950s.
Kinkaid, Jamaica. Annie John. New York: Noonday Press, 1997.
A book about a young girl, and what it is like for her to grow up in the Caribbean.
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika. New York: Theatre Communications, 1993.
The play examines aspects of the gay culture, AIDS, the Mormon and Jewish religions, and other sub-cultures.
Lapierre, Dominique. City of Joy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985.
This book caused a lot of controversy in Calcutta due to its portrayal of the city's poverty and degradation.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Love in the Time of Cholera or One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Penguin, 1994.
Masse, Henri. Persian Beliefs and Customs. New Haven: Human Relations Area File, 1954.
Menchu, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
An autobiography that traces Menchio's life growing up in poverty in Spanish-Indian culture.
Narayan, R. K. Malgudi Days. New York: Viking, 1982.
This book takes a simple and humorous look at life in rural and semi-rural south India.
Pushkin, Aleksandr. Eugene Onegin. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
A poem about life in Russia in the early nineteenth century.
Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991.
A classic work on the immigrant experience written from the perspective of a young Jewish boy who has emigrated to New York.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House, 1997.
*Said, Edward. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Viking, 1999.
Selvon, Samuel. A Brighter Sun. Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1985.
A book set in Trinidad about the life of a young couple who get married and try to survive on their own.
Shakespeare, William. Julius Ceasar. New York: Applause, 1998.
Ancient Greece from the perspective of sixteenth-century England.
Smith, Anna Deavere. Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities. New York : Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1993.
Interviews with Black and Jewish residents in the racially polarized Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Crown Heights following riots in August 1991.
Sobel, Dava. Galileo's Daughter. New York: Walker & Co., 1999.
Read it to learn about the lives of women in the sixteenth century.
Suri, Manil. The Death of Vishnu. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.
The lives of the residents of a Bombay apartment building.
Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife. New York: Putnam, 1991.
Second-generation Chinese women try to understand their mothers' lives.
Tannen, Deborah. You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. N.Y.: Ballantine Books, 1991.
Tannen is a socio-linguist who wrote a book for the layperson on the differences in men's and women's communication styles.
Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. New York: Grove Press, 1993.
Yoshimoto, Banana. N. P.: A Novel. New York: Grove Press, 1994.
Short stories about contemporary Japanese culture. A very fresh book on the young generation in Japan today.
*Recommended by Sana Reynolds and Deborah Valentine in Guide to Intercultural Communication. Prentice Hall, 2003.