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The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twen （Thomas L. Friedman） |  |
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The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twen （Thomas L. Friedman） | |
![The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twen [平装]](http://img.reader8.com/uploadfile/2013/0322/20130322040559756.jpg)
Reviews
1. "Captivating . . . an enthralling read. To his great credit, Friedman embraces much of his flat world's complexity, and his reporting brings to vibrant life some beguiling characters and trends. . . . [The World is Flat] is also more lively, provocative, and sophisticated than the overwhelming bulk of foreign policy commentary these days. We've no real idea how the twenty-first century's history will unfold, but this terrifically stimulating book will certainly inspire readers to start thinking it all through."
--Warren Bass, The Washington Post
2. "No one today chronicles global shifts in simple and practical terms quite like Friedman. He plucks insights from his travels and the published press that can leave you spinning like a top. Or rather, a pancake."
--Clayton Jones, The Christian Science Monitor
3. "Friedman . . . nicely sums up the explosion of digital-technology advances during the past fifteen years and places the phenomenon in its global context. . . . He never shrinks from the biggest problems and the thorniest issues."
--Paul Magnusson, BusinessWeek
4. "[The World is Flat] is filled with the kind of close reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by. Add in Friedman's winning first-person interjections and masterful use of strategic wonksterisms, and this book should end up on the front seats of quite a few Lexuses and SUVs of all stripes."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Customer Reviews
1. Heads in the sand should read this book!, August 23, 2007
By Brian Thibodeau (Ontario, Canada)
This began as a response to one of the harsh reviews previously posted, but I figured it'd be just as good as a counterbalance in the review section.
Using an approach the layman can understand, Friedman chronicles an event which took place (the flattening of the world, so to speak) right under our noses. He gives an excellent overview of how globalization really HAS helped the world, and he does it via plenty of footnoted research into actual events that took place to get us to this point in history.
Commerce (or consumption, if you'd rather) is, whether you like to admit it or not, the backbone of ALL successful societies (you know, the ones that aren't still tearing themselves apart over dark age religions and living in sandy hellholes). Sure, it comes with a price, but what doesn't? The fight to stem global warming will no doubt come with a price (higher priced hybrid cars and other associated costs of being "green"), but in the end, our descendants will live vastly different lives centuries from now because of it.
I'm sure the Negative Nellies here would be the first people to point fingers at how little the people in Chinese factories are paid (especially in light of the recent toy scandals), but don't want to know what options they had before they had those supposedly "lousy" factory jobs. Oh, that's right, they had NO options.
The very fact that Friedman addresses the dark side of globalization in the book (and in related audio programs and interviews he's done over the last year or more) should indicate that he's well aware of the fall-out, but knows it's inevitable AND surmountable as more and more countries develop a middle class, even if it's a middle class build on knock-offs like China's. But with higher standards being slowly forced upon them as an exporter, the benefit will be higher standards of living for their people, and less reliance on the bootleg.
The forces are already in play to legitimize much of what Friedman has outlined in the book, and so much the better we'll all be for it. It's not about how much we can consume, although boy can we North Americans consume, and we wanted to do it for less money, and now look where all our manufacturing jobs have gone. But don't worry, there will always be an infrastructure in place in western countries, and while some business goes overseas, new business springs up. Even a service-based economy is still an economy. But now former third world countries and/or failed dictator states are finally being given the opportunity that they could not possibly have taken before due to doomed philosphies: they can begin to think globally and come out of the dark ages, where once the only "saviour" someone believed they needed was spoonfed to them from birth, but really only an internal salve against raging poverty and/or oppression. THAT's the only useful function of most religions and many political systems, but that's another book altogether. THIS book is about something that is too big to suddenly stop because we fear for future generations. Instead, we have to find ways to make what already works, work better, so that future generations from ALL walks of life and from ALL countries can partake in better economies, and freer societies.
Loathe globalization all you want, but in this day and age, and probably for many more ages to come, COMMERCE will be the major way to guarantee progress. Goodness knows, politics and religion have tried and failed repeatedly, so why NOT let the marketplace dictate progress. It works, and it's flaws can be corrected, as they are in all good sciences; it just takes time.
And, if you're bummed out, as "Casca" appears to be in another review, that you couldn't start your own airline, you've missed the point again. The point is that we now live in a world that's more connected than at any point in the history of mankind, and we're only going to become MORE connected as time goes on. If you have the capabilities of utilizing that connectivity to further your own business plans, creativity, social life, knowledge, you'd be a fool not to give it a try. Hell, even the terrorists have done it! It's not about running down to your bank for $100 million loans. It's about seeing the world, and your place in it-particularly if your business is BUSINESS and actually making a decent living-being made better with the technology that's at your fingertips. The one's who are sticking their heads in the sand are the ones who can't fathom that the world flattened, as Friedman says, while they were sleeping.
2. This book is an eye opener, September 5, 2007
By Robert G Yokoyama (Mililani, Hawaii)
Technology changes so fast, and people need to educate themselves and upgrade their skills to compete in a flat world. This is the main message of this informative book by Thomas Friedman. Work like data entry can get outsourced or sent and done in other countries, so it is important to constantly adapt and learn new skills. He gives good examples of people collaborating together. I liked the example of the Dell computer Friedman used to write the book. Four hundred companies located in Asia, North America and Europe played a role in designing his computer. I did not know that a company in India could track lost luggage for Delta airline passengers in the United States. It is possible for a company in Cambodia to write an Arabic dictionary for a company in Iran.
Friedman also writes about the bad side of technology. He discusses how a cell phone can be used to help high school students to cheat on a test. He also talks about how the slang of the Internet can make students poor communicators in the classroom. With information at a person's fingertips and all the technology available, the private lives of people are not so private any more. Friedman makes this point loud and clear.
The fall Of The Berlin Wall symbolized the good that technology could do. It brought people together and helped them communicate. The tragedy on September 11th symbolized what could happen when technology is in the wrong hands. These are two important points in this book. The World Is Flat is really an eye opener in my opinion, because it implores readers to look at the positive and negative points of technology.
Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times, where he serves as the foreign affairs columnist. He is the author of three best-selling books: From Beirut to Jerusalem, 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, and Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism.He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family.
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