Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...SWITZERLAND in the middle ages had an image problem. The rest of Europe saw the Swiss as a backward, uncultured group. The only thing they seemed to be good at was slaughtering large portions of whatever nation's army happened to traverse their rocky frontiers. They were such good fighters, in fact, that in the days before chocolate and watches the confederation's main export was the mercenary armies they hired out to shore up the troops of nations that had given up trying to conquer the Swiss...
...couple of centuries after repelling their last would-be attacker Switzerland presents a different face to the world. Far from being backward, it is now one of the most modern and attractive nations in the world. From an economy based on exporting soldiers, the Swiss have diversified to become a provider of expensive manufactured goods as well as the world's premier bankers. If there was ever a nation that could be described as a bastion of capitalism, Switzerland...
...John McPhee explain in La Place de la Concorde Suisse, woe betide any nation that tries to change this. While Switzerland's economic fortunes have changed over the last half-millennia, its commitment to a strong defense has not. McPhee begins the book by noting that, "The Swiss have not fought a war for nearly five hundred years and are determined to know how so as not to." For the next 150 pages McPhee shows us just how they go about this. Most important are the frequent maneuvers that the Swiss army holds in the mountainous countryside. McPhee tagged along...
Finally, after much prodding by Greenpeace, the French admitted the true nature of the freight: uranium that was being shipped to the Soviet Union to be processed into nuclear fuel and then returned to Europe for use in nuclear power plants. Belgium, Italy and Switzerland have had similar arrangements with the Soviets since 1973, when the U.S., which then had a virtual monopoly on enrichment technology, sharply raised its prices. The French recently extended their agreements with the Soviet Union through the year...
...Switzerland, 5.9% of the gross national product stems from tourism; in certain Alpine vacation areas, travelers' spending accounts for up to 80% of the economy. It is this boom in tourism, however, that has led to concern that an ecological apocalypse may be at hand. Says Gernot Patzelt, Innsbruck University's chief ecologist: "We have to define the maximum load, the point beyond which damages will become irreparable...