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The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
by Thomas L. Friedman
If you are not willing to entertain the notion that free trade could be a positive force, I don't recommend reading The World is Flat.
The first section of the book almost made me throw it off the train - hundreds of pages of "OMG the internets!!" and a lot of repetitive metaphors ("TCP-IP is the rails of the tubes of the trains of the internet!") weren't neccessary. I know the world is more connected and globalization is an unstoppable force. Some of his examples of how the internet is changing things are interesting however - Friedman is a famous journalist and gets tours of everyone's secret corporate headquarters.
The next part of the book scared me - my job will be outsourced! America will fall behind! We've humiliated the Arab countries and they will never forgive us! But in general this is a pretty optimistic book. In the best parts of the book, Friedman documents uplifting stories of people, companies, and countries that have made globalization work for them, and then points out everyone else that is failing to do the same. Sort of inspirational, really.
He does gloss over many, many things: the environmental costs of industrializing and raising living standards, the people who are being left out of the global economy, valuable things that are not measured too well by the monetary economy (community?). The massive problems with corporations and the stock market system, historic inequality and the people who exploit it, etc, etc ...
However, his recommendations for getting everyone onto the happy-happy-globalization train are ideas I can support: better health care, more education, and less corruption in the developing parts of the world; better health care access, more education and research, and setting a good example and supporting environmental and working standards everywhere for the developed world.
Very worth a read, just don't let his stupid internet metaphors get to you - he was born into a world without the web, after all. Skip the first section and you might find the rest interesting - it's a good place to start digging into the story of globalization, even if you think he's WRONG WRONG WRONG!
The first section of the book almost made me throw it off the train - hundreds of pages of "OMG the internets!!" and a lot of repetitive metaphors ("TCP-IP is the rails of the tubes of the trains of the internet!") weren't neccessary. I know the world is more connected and globalization is an unstoppable force. Some of his examples of how the internet is changing things are interesting however - Friedman is a famous journalist and gets tours of everyone's secret corporate headquarters.
The next part of the book scared me - my job will be outsourced! America will fall behind! We've humiliated the Arab countries and they will never forgive us! But in general this is a pretty optimistic book. In the best parts of the book, Friedman documents uplifting stories of people, companies, and countries that have made globalization work for them, and then points out everyone else that is failing to do the same. Sort of inspirational, really.
He does gloss over many, many things: the environmental costs of industrializing and raising living standards, the people who are being left out of the global economy, valuable things that are not measured too well by the monetary economy (community?). The massive problems with corporations and the stock market system, historic inequality and the people who exploit it, etc, etc ...
However, his recommendations for getting everyone onto the happy-happy-globalization train are ideas I can support: better health care, more education, and less corruption in the developing parts of the world; better health care access, more education and research, and setting a good example and supporting environmental and working standards everywhere for the developed world.
Very worth a read, just don't let his stupid internet metaphors get to you - he was born into a world without the web, after all. Skip the first section and you might find the rest interesting - it's a good place to start digging into the story of globalization, even if you think he's WRONG WRONG WRONG!
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