In Understanding Global Cultures, Fifth Edition, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor - any activity, phenomenon, or institution with which the members of a given culture identify emotionally or cognitively - as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, and even continents.
The book shows how metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important. The fully updated Fifth Edition includes 31 nation-specific chapters, including a new Part XI on popular music as cultural metaphors, two completely new chapters on Vietnam and Argentina, revisions to all retained chapters, and a more explicit linkage between each cultural metaphor and current economic and business developments in each nation.