I own a humor book, called “Humans”, which was published in 1983. It’s a spoof of the then-popular book “Gnomes”, which purported to be a scientific study of gnome biology and culture.
“Humans” examines modern human culture, from the perspective of a pair of bewildered external scientists. It’s very silly, very insightful, and sadly, long out of print.
Clarke’s classic ,Childhood’s End" is about aliens becoming Earth’s overseers, or overlords.
Cleansing the world of such all-ime history evils as political arrogance, single power-concentrated leaders, etc etc.
And the difference in this novel is that the aliens are seen by average Earthlings as saviours.
L. Ron Hubbard’s excrescence, the “Mission: Earth” series, uses this as a premise. Please note that this is NOT - repeat, NOT - a suggestion that one might wish to actually expose one’s brain to that foul odious crime against paper and all that is good and right in this world. Comparing this series of “books”, for want of a better word, to festering raw sewage is an affront to all sewage everywhere.
There’s a story, I think by Asimov but it may be someone else, that takes place on a spaceship, told from the point of view of the ship’s boy, a plucky lad who gets into trouble repeatedly. There’s a space battle and everything. In the final paragraph of the story, it’s revealed that the “ship’s boy” point of view character is actually the spaceship itself, which is a giant sentient alien.
Damon Knight’s “Cabin Boy”?
Hal Clement occasionally gives the alien’s point of view about humans - for example in “Proof” and “Iceworld”
That’s the one! I’d misremembered lots of details, clearly. Thanks for the title!
On a related note - David Macaulay’s Motel of the Mysteries is a fun read/look thru.
It’s a space opera, but C.J. Cherryh is big into anthropological sf and her Chanur novels has the human(s) as semi-incomprehensible outsiders in a multi-species interstellar venue.
David Brin’s Uplift series often displays humans from the point of view of other species.
Chris Elliott’s Cabin Boy is enjoyable too. “When I return, I shall be a cabin man!”