The World Is Flat: Summary and book reviews of The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, plus links to an excerpt from The World Is Flat and a biography of Thomas Friedman.
The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas Friedman
Hardcover: Apr 2005,
496 pages.
Paperback: Jul 2007,
640 pages.
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.
An expanded and revised version was published in hardcover in April 2006.
Warren Bass - The Washington Post
This book showcases Friedman's gift for lucid dissections of abstruse economic phenomena, his teacher's head, his preacher's heart, his genius for trend-spotting and his sometimes maddening inability to take himself out of the frame.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
....This is all familiar stuff by now, but the last 100 pages on the economic and political roots of global Islamism are filled with the kind of close reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by.
Kirkus Reviews
Those who look forward to a planet of Wal-Marts and Dells will be charmed. Those who don't-well, welcome to the flat world.
The Economist
Mr Friedman's book is subtitled "A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century", but it is not brief, it is not any recognisable form of history--except perhaps of Mr Friedman's own wanderings around the world--and the reference to our new, baby century is just gratuitous. Even according to Mr Friedman's own account, the world has been globalising since 1492.....Rarely has so much information been collected to so little effect.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Tapsearch Com Editor Friedman's Flat World is a mirage and history will confirm this Thomas Friedman is an evangelist for Free Traders and Globalization. You do not need any conspiracy theories to know this thing called Free Trade is not trade at all and Globlization has been driven by elite groupings outside of any real democratic... Read More
Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times. He is the author of three best-selling books: From Beiruit to Jerusalem (1989), winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction and still considered to be the definitive work on the Middle East, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999), and Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002). He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family (more).
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