Switzerland summarised in five Scrabble-winning items of vocabulary

EIDGENOSSENSCHAFT

Switzerland is an anomaly in a multitude of ways. One of the most immediately striking is that it has no head of state; the country is run collectively by a Federal Council. (Admittedly, the council does have a nominal president, but he or she has no more power than the other councillors, and the position typically rotates among members year-on, year-off.)

This lack of a single political focus is something that goes back to the very start of the country, which began as a loose confederation (Genossenschaft) of independent sovereign areas, bound together by oath (Eid). If this seems unusual now, consider how truly unique they were in the Middle Ages, hammering out an awkward cooperative existence while surrounded by autocratic feudal lords and monarchs. Yet somehow they managed to avoid getting sucked in to any of them.

The various linked members of this confederacy – now crystallised into separate cantons – didn't always get on very well, and often still don't – a situation aided by considerable local autonomy. Even contemporary Swiss politics sometimes puts you in mind of reading about medieval city-states.

RÖSTIGRABEN

This is the delightful name colloquially applied to the boundary between German-speaking and Romance-speaking parts of Switzerland – literally, the ‘rösti ditch’. Reflecting the country's disparate origins and lack of political centrality, there are four (really, five) national languages: German, French, Italian, and the interesting Alpine descendant of Vulgar Latin called Romansch. If you're not confused yet, bear with me: there are really two "German" languages here – the Swiss form of standard German, used in newspapers and printed material, which is like German German with a few Helvetisms thrown in; and also true Swiss German, which is a separate language altogether and mutually unintelligible with standard German. The situation in Germanophone parts of the country is thus not unlike Scotland, where Scottish English in public life alternates with Scots on the streets, except that crucially, Swiss German is not seen as being low-prestige: it just happens not to be used in writing.

WILLENSNATION

So the Swiss have a lot of local political autonomy. They do not share a common language, or ethnic origin. They certainly don't share a common religion (Zwingli and Calvin were from Zürich and Geneva respectively, so the country was hit pretty hard by the Reformation). So what do they have in common, exactly?

This was the question various Swiss thinkers were asking themselves in the early modern period, when ideas of nationhood were a hot topic in Europe. The answer that became popular involved seeing Switzerland as a Willensnation: a nation formed simply by a collective act of political and cultural will. One of the things this means in practice is that Swiss history and legend has become very important as a shared pool of reference – the Swiss are much more involved with their history than the Brits are, for example (although the Americans probably give them a run for their money).

Time to re-read William Tell.

RÉDUIT

In medieval and early-modern Europe, Switzerland seem to be stuck in an unenviable position, wedged right between the major powers: France to the west, the Holy Roman Empire to the north, and the powerful Italian states to the south. This is one reason they soon developed the policy of "armed neutrality" that later became such a major part of the country's identity.

The fact that they survived at all is mainly thanks to their geographical position, backed up against the Alps in a natural fortress. In fact until the advent of artillery, it was literally impossible to stage a military take-over of the area: there was simply no army in Europe that had the man-power or the technological means to do it. Hence there are endless examples of Swiss militia thrown together from a few small villages that defeated entire Imperial armies, over and over again.

Perhaps this has an effect on a country's psyche. In the Second World War, it formed the basis of the country's policy of the Réduit (‘cubby-hole’), whereby in case of invasion everyone would retreat to the mountains, which were duly planted with camouflaged cannons and gunner emplacements. This network of Alpine armaments was not fully dismantled till 2011.

There is a (doubtless apocryphal) story about a senior Nazi officer having a clandestine meeting with a Swiss general in 1939, in an attempt to win Switzerland over to the Nazi cause. The Germans threatened invasion if Switzerland refused. ‘I can have a million men mobilised overnight,’ the Swiss general calmly pointed out.

‘Then we shall send two million!’ said the Nazi officer.

‘Ah,’ said the Swiss general. ‘But we will fire twice.’

SONDERFALL

Switzerland came through the war with their territorial integrity and their neutrality intact, and they were proud of coming out the other side in one piece. Not having suffered the depravations of the war years in the same way that the combatants had, their economy boomed. Industrial output went into overdrive and GDP shot up like a bridegroom on Viagra. The number of millionaires also rose precipitously.

Perhaps (some people started to say) Switzerland was somehow special…? It had avoided the problems other nation-states were lumbered with; it had found the magic formula. It was a Sonderfall, a special case.

In some ways it was, and still is. But the honeymoon is long over. Their wartime conduct has been aggressively called into question, especially by the US over the ‘Nazi gold’ issue. An influx of foreign workers and a credit crunch has led to a flourishing far-right in Switzerland, built on fears of Überfremdung or ‘over-foreignisation’ – a fear best symbolised by the nauseating ban on minarets a few years ago. And in other ways too, the country has been slow to modernise socially: women in parts of Switzerland were still excluded from voting in local elections until 1990. No, that is not a typo. Nineteen-fucking-ninety.

Switzerland definitely repays further study, given its many peculiarities, and the two authors here (one an expert on the medieval Swiss, the other an expert on the modern state) rattle through the essentials briskly. This book does what it says on the tin, competently but without flair. However, as a one-volume history of the country down to modern times, it doesn't currently have much competition. ( )