Customer Reviews

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In "Slaugherhouse Five", Kurt Vonnegut introduced us to the Tralfamadoreans. These bizarre creatures said humans have a confined view of the world. It's as if we were sealed in a container, looking at the world down a long, narrow pipe. Thomas Friedman fits that description well in this book on how "globalisation" has developed over the past decade. Artfully portraying how large corporations are extending their reach around the globe, what he sees is intense and rewarding. What he misses is depressing and possibly calamitous. Although Friedman's sprightly style and unbounded enthusiasm is initially captiviating, a different feeling arises after you close the final page. The worst thing that can be said about this book is that everything Friedman says in it is true.

What is globalisation? Friedman sees it as technology spreading the wealth from industrialised to developing nations. Collapsing barriers, particularly "trade barriers" help promote economic development for both First and Third World countries. He proposes a ten step historical sequence of forces that promoted globalisation. These forces, in his view, enabled the spread of Western electronic technology, encouraging economic growth. From the fall of the Berlin Wall through "outsourcing" to utilise cheap labour, to wireless communication, these forces converged to give us a true "global village". It's more than widening the labour pool. Friedman cheers the idea of his taxes being done in Bangalore or CAT scans taken in Cape Cod being diagnosed in Melbourne. All that concerns Friedman is that the information be turned around overnight ready for delivery the next morning. He claims that the knowledge needed in New York is goading leaps in education to provide it in places like India and China. That "education" includes language-skill classes to enable "help-desk" staff sound more "American". The staff even adopt names like "Betty" or "Rob" to convince callers that they're "right next door" instead of ten thousand kilometres away.

While plodding through the extensive list of successful ventures around the planet, largely foster-parented by highly competitive high-tech US technology firms, you discern that he's quoting the same people repeatedly. Certain figures in India loom large, but it's hard to see how many of these new entrepreneurs are actually in the global market instead of building up their domestic economy. As you encounter these big players, it's hard not to see a top-heavy, unitarian structure emerging. Although these new firms are portrayed by Friedman as uniformly service agencies, the reader can't help but wonder if more Enrons are in the making. More collapses like that, which don't have to be triggered by fraud, will bring down many affiliated or dependent companies. Friedman argues that the international arrangement of "global supply chains" is so tightly integrated now that wars between states in that complex geopolitical structure have become impossible. But it doesn't take a war to collapse an economic bubble.

Friedman argues that his "bubble" will continue to grow, but takes but the merest peek at the societies underlying the inflationary process. We learn nothing of how widespread the technological advancements in the nations he visits are. In what he supposes is a glowing example, he makes a quick jaunt to an "untouchable" village in India, visiting a school teaching English and journalism. These people have little water, no sanitation and food is scarce. Are these the future "help desk" staff? Later, he laments the "quiet crisis" in the US where science and technology education is teetering. Nearly forty per cent of NASA's technical staff, he notes, is over 50 years old. Where will the replacements come from? India, China and Japan are already advancing in space programmes - a field where heavy rocketry and miniature electronics are necessities. And two of those nations possess nuclear weapons.

Friedman's glee at dispersing high-tech services around the globe totally ignores the many costs incurred. He thinks "outsourcing" is a "good thing" for the US economy because it will drive people to secure new talents. He likes having airline tickets electronically distributed. He extols the US business leaders promoting the "flat Earth" without noting that real wages are declining, wealth is being concentrated and skilled workers remain threatened over job security. He isn't aware of environmental issues being exacerbated by some of the factors he applauds. His rosy view of the world needs serious enlargement. Perhaps he might step along the hall at the New York Times and have a chat with his colleague Paul Krugman. He might actually learn something. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Karl Marx had predicted that capitalism would flatten the world:where it exhorts the bourgeoisie to abandon national seclusion and self-dependancy and chase for profits towards the inter-dependance of nations, leading the bourgeois to create images of themselves throught the world. Mr Friedman seems to concur wholeheartedly. He says we are now in Globalization 3.0: driven mostly by non-white, non-western individuals, because no matter what your profession, much of the work is going to be outsourced to better, cheaper producers in India and China.Most of the book focusses on the same basic point: the world is getting flatter, and the West must come to terms with the awarkening giants of China and India. As a 16 year old 11th Grader of Asian origin living in North America, I found the book strangely worrying. Though extremely readable, full of first person anecdotes and interviews, perhaps Mr. Friedman belabors the same message over and over too frequently.
Mr. Friedman's real contribution to me, however comes in the last 100 pages or so. I found his comments on the Middle-East very accurate. In their failure to "glocalize" Muslim countries are struggling even more as the world flattens. As he puts it, the curse of oil is partly accountable: countries that have no oil, or have run out of it are the first movers to democratize and hold their rulers accountable. No taxes means no accountability by the rulers, who are happy to run the status quo. Mr Friedman says that the founders of Al-Qaeda are not fundamentalists per se. He looks upon them as a political phenomenon: Islamo-Leninists with a utopian-totalitarian image of the world, caused by a "real cognitive-dissonance", spawned by the "poverty of dignity". Sami T. Ahmad.

This is a powerful book if somewhat flawed. It is always a treat to read well written prose and the topics he raises are important. For that reason I give this book five stars. Although the writing is first rate I was left with the feeling of that the perspective it offers is somewhat imbalanced. It certainly is a call to arms but perhaps Friedman over reaches in this manifesto and makes conclusions that do not always follow. In my opinion the "flatness" we now perceive, a seeming equality of individuals through the Internet is an illusions. The institutions which act like filters are still present and act as filters even now on the Internet. Through its evolution the Internet will more and more fall in line.
Globalization is a genie that the US in my opinion let out of the bottle. I do not see that it was an inevitability.
Further Friedman neglects to emphasize the sheer power the United States still wields in the world.

Are Y2K, the rise of China and the World Trade Center attack are all some of the most important events of this emerging century were these changes inevitable or where they the result of poor judgment of US foreign policy over the past 15 years? From my perspective many of these mistakes were made by our politician most especially in the Clinton years (despite good intentions) but there has also been a cancer that has been eating away at our society for a long while most notably in education and in our intelligence community. We have overestimated our power while trying to express a largess in a world that seems to only boil over more with anti-Americanism. We have served up hope to the third world without coming through which can only make the populations of the third world more anti-American. Certainly this is not only the fault of America as despots of the third world have made corruption into an artform and are the main impediment to alleviating world hunger. America's fault is in it's naivety. I choose to believe we have made the mess we are in now and we can change American policies if our leaders are quick and savvy enough.
Are the aforementioned events (Y2K, 9-11, the rise of China and the Internet) even connected - in my mind not necessarily. Only time can tell us. Certainly a dangerous convergence of events has occurred recently and we must adapt. The attack on 9-11 was a warning that is certain.

Another point I will take with issue with Friedman on is his pointing to the bursting of the dot.com bubble while saying that the Internet is making for a level playing field. There seems to me to be a contradiction somewhere in that - more than that the author will allow himself to admit.. We also have no way of know if indeed the Internet will level the playing field as it is something which is too new to make any conclusions about. That the Internet levels the playing field is a cliche.
There are certain contradictions to American culture in its embracing of freedom and materialism. We have seen before the triumph of Democracy over Totalitarianism during W.W.II but is it always the case? On one hand a Democracy makes easier the free exchange of ideas but on the other a Totalitarian regime like China can make great changes in a hurry as it functions with one mind. Will China receive through the Internet Democracy or will the economic power recently given to the totlitarian regime make that change impossible. That is one of the great questions for the future.

One more point I would like to make and it is this: if history has shown us anything, the world never was nor ever will be, "flat". In that way the author neglects some of the great lessons of history.
Still a very stimulating and thought provoking read.

I also recommend The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Gladwell

This was a severe disappointment to those looking for a thoughtful, insightful book. It essentially takes the biggest headlines of the last 10 years and ... repeats them. Because he extensively quotes from his sources, he is no more or less than a cheerleader. Virtually every sentence of the book may be followed by "he said, breathlessly".

There is no original thought or synthesis to this book. For all of this book I thought to myself "well, duh", since everything he talks about is obvious. Example - we live in a globalized economy - well, duh, what do you think all those people protesting the WTO were doing?

I am currently reading this book and can not put it down. I have made reference to it numerous times in the three days i have had it and feel that it should be mandatory reading for all americans. This is a life changing book and an eye opener as well. It was not our fault we may have missed what was going on around the world but we now have the knowledge to understand that then next ten-to-twenty years will be like nothing we have ever imagined in history. I'm an american and i have recommended to all my freinds that they need to read this book; and for my best friends i have warned them that i would not be their best friend if i didn't buy this for them as well. Please don't pass this book up, it is as important as anything you are ever likely to read.
Sincerely,
Luke K. Songer

A good collaboration of ideas for globalist in developed and developing nations on the roots of where globalization has come from and where it is going. While the author doesn't present much for his own original thought, I would not have had the time to research the topic myself to this level of detail (A perfect example of what the book speaks to: collaboration, doing what you do best and outsourcing the commodity). For me, I outsourced the research to Friedman. I will benifit in the end by being more aware of the challenges my children will face if they wish to succeed in this flat world 20 years from now.

Friedman succeeds in contextualizing 21st century globalism while drawing interesting comparisons and offering reasonable advice. As a journalist, Friedman's writing is clear and efficient, striking a nice balance between showing and telling. In support of his argument, Friedman occasionally gets heavy-handed to hammer his point home, occasionally spends too much time on topics which may be evident to most already. Preachy and American-centric at times, but reasonable and consistent overall. A good read at 25, something I would've enjoyed in high school too.

I found this to be a very interesting book. We live in an exceptional period of time and change is happening all around us. I also recommend The System by Roy Valentine as another excellent book.

I think we've all been having globalization discussions for the last few years. This book put the main points of these discussions and the realities in focus. The book will continue to be successful because people on both sides of the coin - those with wealth and those seeking wealth - will benefit from this information. Globalization is a reality. The world today will look significatly different in 10 years from now. Another very useful book on globalization is Stop Working by Rohan Hall. It focuses more however on how entrepreneurs can use globalization to their own financial advantage to "stop working" and become independently wealthy.

Thomas Friedman regales us with more boosterism for capitalist globalization. He's a clever writer, easy to read, and I had to give him credit recently for coming out strongly in favor of reducing U.S. dependency on oil imports. He blasted the oilheads of the Bush Administration for failing to exercise leadership on the issue, and their preference for drilling in ANWR and destroying Social Security instead of raising the CAFE standard (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) and pushing the all-out development of renewable energy. So I'll give him two stars instead of one. But unfortunately on his favorite topic of globalization, Friedman is only clever, not wise. He is an apologist for TINA, the fatalistic view that There Is No Alternative to the power of global capital, and he has persistently attacked the global justice movement. The Achilles Heel in his blinkered analysis is the environment. If capitalist industrialization continues at its current pace, it won't matter whether the U.S. or China is out in front of the parade, because the parade route is headed right for a cliff. (See my OVERSHOOT AND COLLAPSE? list, and reviews of several books, including LIMITS TO GROWTH: THE 30-YEAR UPDATE.) Beyond that, he consciously and deliberately diverts our attention from our potential power to alter the course of events, to Be Realistic, and Demand the Impossible! What's it all for? Is life nothing more than produce-consume-and-die? I refuse to believe it. We don't have to accept TINA. The future isn't written yet! The heartless, twisted expansion of global capital is not MY vision of the future, it wasn't John Paul II's vision, it isn't the vision expressed in Genesis 2:15 which calls on us to be stewards of creation, and I hope it isn't your vision either.
You might also wish to check out Giorgio Kostantinos'-The Quest- for a great read.