The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman [Paperback]

This book is simply awful. There is plenty to criticize about Friedman's The World is Flat, but this book is so poorly written with so few specific points that I can't recommend it to anyone.

The book does help make it clear that many critics of globalization have a problem with corporations driving the process, not with globalization itself. It also mentions many other books, probably all of which are better than this one. I'll give it two stars for that, but I'm being generous. Don't read this book.

I've just started reading Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work. Read that book instead. Specific criticisms of globalization followed by specific recommendations to fix the problems. You'll find neither in The World is Flat? You will literally learn more about globalization by reading Wikipedia's page on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization) than you will by reading this book.

Specific complaints:

First, much of the book consists of personal attacks against Friedman. For example, they spend time discussing a *rumor* that he has clothes FedExed to him while his travels. So what? Actually, that sounds like a great idea if you have the money.

Second, much of what they criticize is really quite petty. For example, Friedman spells "workflow software" as "work flow software". Half a page gets devoted to that extra space.

Third, several pages of the book are devoted to comments off of Amazon's customer review sections. So you find out some people don't like his book. Amazon tells me that for free.

Fourth, pointless sarcasm appears on nearly every page. For example, on page 58 we find out that, "Seldom has there appeared such a superficial treatment of Ricardo's 'comparative advantage,' that is, except perhaps in some 11th grade civics class."

In short, the entire book is Amazon and Wikipedia quotes, strung together with personal attacks and sarcasm. Even the valid criticisms of Friedman's work are rarely followed by anything useful, like a discussion of alternative viewpoints. Read Stiglitz or Wikipedia instead of this book.

The World is Flat?

Really, did you know that? Well, from a geometric point of view, the world is not really flat. But, from almost every other point of view (travel, political, vocational, industrial, environmental, etc...) the world is either flat or becoming flat. When I say the world is flat or becoming flat, what I really mean is the world is in theory becoming smaller. At least, this is the argument presented in Thomas Friedman's book "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century" and also in the Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo book "The World is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman".

Basically, what Friedman asserts is that with the rate technology is advancing, the world is getting smaller. Technology enables individuals and small companies to act like or have a presence similar to large companies and vice versa. Jobs are constantly migrating, mostly from the United States to somewhere overseas and the U.S. has the constant challenge of trying to stay ahead of the "pack" of other nations that are giving chase for their piece of the global pie. He claims the U.S. has all the resources to meet the challenges associated with the ever changing and shrinking "flat world" but that we are lagging behind the rest of the developed world in pretty much every major area that we need to be excelling in.

From my point of view, in "The World is Flat?" Aronica and Ramdoo do not necessarily disagree with all of what Friedman has observed and written, but they very much disagree with his methods and call into question his research and interview processes. For example, they claim he gathered most of his notes from the elites while in China and India and that he pretty much discounts the less fortunate or the "have nots". Their largest fundamental difference with Friedman is in their basic view of globalization as good or bad. Aronica and Ramdoo claim Friedman is fully supportive of unfettered globalization regardless of the consequences.

Personally, I believe Friedman is a fan of globalization, but I think they go a little too far. Though it is never directly stated in Friedman's book or in Aronica and Ramdoo's book, they make is seem as though Friedman's desire is to see the U.S. without national boundaries and for Americans to be stepping and fetching along with the rest of the world in some sort of "New World Order". Again, neither book comes out and says this, and who knows, maybe Friedman does feel this way.

I believe Friedman's book does a good job of focusing on the positive aspects of globalization (e.g., helping individuals compete with large companies, providing financial stability to people in developing nations) while also cautioning the reader with other things that must be taken into consideration (e.g., vocation training and placement for individuals that have lost jobs to other countries, challenges to national sovereignty).

Again, Aronica and Ramdoo agree with many of Friedman's points but criticize him for not seeing much of this happening earlier on, and for creating new catchy terminology that really means nothing in technology or business circles. They of course have a heavy focus on the negatives of globalization.

If you have invested the time in reading Friedman's 616 pages of "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century" then I would definitely recommend reading Aronica and Ramdoo's "The World is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman". Coming in at 132 pages, it should be a much quicker read. Aronica and Ramdoo tend to focus on the negatives of globalization and offer a good counter balance to the data presented by Friedman. I would especially recommend it in case you are undecided in your own views and want help in forming your own opinion regarding globalization.

One caution, in Friedman's book get ready to read the phrase "the world is flat" and how amazing and scary it is over and over and in Aronica and Ramdoo's book get ready to read various jabs and barbs at Friedman over and over.

Section by section criticism of Friedman's book. The general theme is "Friedman is wrong," followed by selective use of "experts" to support the theme.

Very poor scholarship. The book seems to be a real cut and paste job, containing long strings of quotations (4.5 pages of quotes in the introduction from one source), where the quotes are poorly cited. Most include an author's name, but few include complete citations making it impossible to verify. Also, it's not clear if the long quotations are consecutive.

They claim that Friedman is pro-globalization, which isn't quite true.

"While readers probably cannot find a single lie in Friedman's book, neither can they find the whole truth, nor most of the important facts of globalization." Isn't this the nature of a theory or an argument?

They argue implicitly that Friedman is right in his positive analysis, but that the results are normatively "bad".

The real argument of the authors is in the last section of the book, pp. 93-130, in which they identify what they claim are the real problems with globalization. Many of these are indeed problems, but they don't hang together coherently. Is the low U.S. savings rate due to globalization?

Globalization is bad for labor. It's shipping jobs abroad where workers can be exploited for much less cost than here. The winners are capitalists worldwide. The result is increased income inequality, here and worldwide. Trade should be fair not free. Industrial policy is the answer.

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