David W. Augsburger discusses conflict patterns in
different exotic cultures. At the beginning of each chapter, he provides
a number of proverbs and folk tales reflecting the
different attitudes towards disputes found around the globe. Many of these also involve God or religious rituals, whereas Augsburger’s theological background has no further influence on his approach to the topic. He relies on the traditional dichotomies and taxonomies introduced by Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey.
He mainly deals with small and economically insignificant communities, which has both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, he avoids the typical “A Japanese
businessman meets an American businessman” scenario but provides unusual insights into the field, on the other hand, it is quite unlikely for the individual reader to have a conflict with a Zulu and, therefore, some examples could seem irrelevant easily.