This is an amusing enough entry into the "Xenophobes' Guide" series, but has a negative undertone that can get wearing. It's not that I think that everything should be sweetness and light. But this book does seem to emphasize the negative aspects of current-day Germanness at the expense of more endearing traits. Since the authors are German, they know whereof they speak and can do so without grating. Still, their view of Germanness seems to me more reminiscent of the Germany of thirty or forty years ago than of Germany today. ( )