(Not that it matters much, but my review is based on the 18th edition, published in 2020, just before the pandemic and Ukrainian-Russian War. This version's optimism about the international community working cooperatively with Russia, and the predictions of continued global economic growth, did now seem as awkward as you might expect.)
And to begin with expectations, I think this book, and the class I took along with it, really reshaped my definition of "marketing." The common perception is that it's advertising, sales, and promotion. A business student might go one step further and add that it includes pricing decisions and strategies about which markets a company will sell in (though at larger corporations, these functions often live in areas vaguely connected to their dedicated marketing departments.) But while this book covered those areas, it read almost like a history book. It talks about free trade agreements, tariffs and boycotts, the World Trade Organization, political and legal environments, cultural expectations, and research tactics, and it even dedicates full chapters to geographic regions like the Americas, the Asia-Pacific Region, and more. All this is covered before the book gets into marketing strategies, which was unexpected but fascinating. In essence, the book is designed to give you everything you need to think about before you even begin to think about international marketing.
It's a long book with a lot of text and examples. My course covered all but two chapters of it in just seven weeks, which is a rapid pace to absorb such a dense textbook. As any student knows, it becomes a process of reading something just closely enough to pass the next exam, and then having to subconsciously dump most of that newfound knowledge to make room for the next section. That said, I did enjoy it. A lot of MBA textbooks only cover the basics, or repeat the same concepts discussed in other courses. (I must have studied SWOT analysis in four different courses.) But most of this book/class covered new territory, which was a refreshing surprise. I only wish I'd had more time to savor it rather than speed-read.