The first portion of the book devotes itself to describing the laundry lis...moreI only read half of this book.
Easily the worst non fiction book I have read.
The first portion of the book devotes itself to describing the laundry list of Friedman's fears; the link between oil money and radical Islam, Chinese and Indian growth, global warming, and America's stagnant relationship with green energy. Instead of focusing on any one of these topics that some authors spend careers focusing on Friedman decided to take all of them on at once. The effect of this being that he fails to give the reader anything substantial on any topic. He lumps all of these issues into one basket and then makes the case on how America can solve all of these issues and save the world again.
Friedman only uses statistics that serve to prop up his weakly grounded arguments. His Malthusian view of growth is ignorant and outdated. Paragraph after paragraph contains biases towards non-western nations (the proverbial us and them) where he puts the worlds problems of terrorism, global warming and the ever increasing global middle class in an equation that has one answer. In his view these problems can be solved if America would stop using oil and revamp the economy towards clean energy. He fails to see any solution beyond the scope of "If America would do this...this would happen".
He needs to step off the soap box and do actual research instead of regurgitating NY Times headlines.(less)
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