| Product Summary | | Format: Paperback | | ISBN: 9780312425074 | | Publisher: Picador USA | | Publish Date: 8/8/2006 | | Buy.com Sku: 31288241 | | Item#: R4NWQ7 | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 10005 | | Pages: 592 |
|
|
|
| | | In this brilliant book, an award-winning "New York Times" columnist explains how the flattening--i.e., connectedness--of the world happened at the dawn of the 21st century, what it means to the global economy, and how governments and societies must adapt.
Annotation:
In THE WORLD IS FLAT, the highly-regarded New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman advances the work on globalization that made his THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE a bestseller. Claiming that the world is now at an important historical point--as important as the changes brought by the discoveries by Columbus or by the Industrial Revolution--Friedman analyzes the events, inventions, and business practices that have resulted in a changed world, one he calls Globalization 3.0. In this "brave new world," the economic playing field has been leveled: whereas the economic prizes formerly went to rich and powerful western nations almost by default, all is now up for grabs, according to Friedman. ||Friedman identifies what he calls ten "flatteners" that, together, have brought about this new business environment. His investigations take him to India, where he learns about outsourcing and call centers; to China, where he learns about offshoring and supply chains; and to America, where he sees firsthand how Walmart functions and how UPS has broken new ground in working to support smaller companies. He explains difficult concepts, illustrates them through case studies, and brings everything together to support his main thesis that the world is "flat," or less of an obstacle course. He points out that this totally changed and charged global business environment, while it opens up markets worldwide, also poses threats to America. Whereas exuberant (and often youthful) entrepreneurial knowledge workers are finding new opportunity, so too are terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, who are finding ways to exploit this new set of rules. Friedman discusses the profound political implications of globalization, including how the very notion of nationhood may be in question. He explains why he takes a sanguine view of practices such as outsourcing, while warning that America will be left behind unless it rises to the occasion, as it has in the past, and joins in the game. THE WORLD IS FLAT is a major statement from one of America's premier commentators on current events.
| Praise| "[A]n enthralling read. To his credit, Friedman embraces much of his flat world's complexity, and his reporting brings to vibrant life some beguiling characters and trends....It is also more lively, provocative and sophisticated than the overwhelming bulk of foreign policy commentary these days....[A] terrifically stimulating book...." - Warren Bass 04/03/2005 "[E]xcellent....The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious....Friedman has a flair for business reporting....[The book's] fundamental insight is true and deeply important." - Fareed Zakaria 05/01/2005 "[An] exciting and very readable account of globalization....[H]e provides a compelling case that something big is going on....One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way, and Mr. Friedman certainly succeeds in that goal." - Joseph Stiglitz 04/30/2005 "As he has done in previous books Friedman has expressed a powerful larger mood, and in this respect THE WORLD IS FLAT may prove a prescient guide to future American foreign policy....There are many books announcing a global economic transformation and suggesting that governments can be reengineered to adapt to it in much the same way as corporations. THE WORLD IS FLAT is an outstanding example of this genre." - John Gray 08/11/2005 "[Friedman] is an energetic reporter and good storyteller. His new book teems with interesting anecdotes about innovative companies, technologies and business processes." - George Scialabba 06/13/2005 |
| Author Bio| Thomas L. Friedman | | Thomas L. Friedman?s journey to his prestigious and influential position as Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times began early; he credits his high school teachers for instilling in him a "love of writing" and a "passion for journalism." Friedman was educated at Brandeis University, where he earned his B.A., and Oxford University, where he earned a Master of Philosophy degree in Middle East studies. He also attended the American University in Cairo. Friedman won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting in the 1980s, when he served first as bureau chief in Beirut and later as bureau chief in Jerusalem for the New York Times. His first book, FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM (1989) recounts his experiences in those cities, and it was followed in 2000 by THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE, his first work on globalization.||In 2005, Friedman published THE WORLD IS FLAT, a major statement on globalization whose provocative world view and common-sense explanations helped make it a bestseller. It also showed, as he explicitly states, how much the world had changed since his earlier books. Friedman welcomes the exciting new world of globalization and the many opportunities it offers, but he advises that America needs to be better prepared if it is to maintain its lead in a globalized, flat world.||Thomas Friedman?s columns in the New York Times are avidly read by fans for their rational, centrist views of current events, and for the high caliber of their writing. In 2006, Friedman?s achievements were honored when he was named a Pulitzer judge. |
| | Read A Chapter | Chapter One While I Was Sleeping Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that anyone has gone. -Entry from the journal of Christopher Columbus on his voyage of 1492 No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: "Aim at either Microsoft or IBM." I was standing on the first tee at the KGA Golf Club in downtown Bangalore, in southern I Click to read more... Chapter One While I Was Sleeping Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that anyone has gone. -Entry from the journal of Christopher Columbus on his voyage of 1492 No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: "Aim at either Microsoft or IBM." I was standing on the first tee at the KGA Golf Club in downtown Bangalore, in southern India, when my playing partner pointed at two shiny glass-and-steel buildings off in the distance, just behind the first green. The Goldman Sachs building wasn't done yet; otherwise he could have pointed that out as well and made it a threesome. HP and Texas Instruments had their offices on the back nine, along the tenth hole. That wasn't all. The tee markers were from Epson, the printer company, and one of our caddies was wearing a hat from 3M. Outside, some of the traffic signs were also sponsored by Texas Instruments, and the Pizza Hut billboard on the way over showed a steaming pizza, under the headline "Gigabites of Taste!" No, this definitely wasn't Kansas. It didn't even seem like India. Was this the New World, the Old World, or the Next World? I had come to Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, on my own Columbus-like journey of exploration. Columbus sailed with the Niqa, the Pinta, and the Santa Marma in an effort to discover a shorter, more direct route to India by heading west, across the Atlantic, on what he presumed to be an open sea route to the East Indies-rather than going south and east around Africa, as Portuguese explorers of his day were trying to do. India and the magical Spice Islands of the East were famed at the time for their gold, pearls, gems, and silk-a source of untold riches. Finding this shortcut by sea to India, at a time when the Muslim powers of the day had blocked the overland routes from Europe, was a way for both Columbus and the Spanish monarchy to become wealthy and powerful. When Columbus set sail, he apparently assumed the Earth was round, which was why he was convinced that he could get to India by going west. He miscalculated the distance, though. He thought the Earth was a smaller sphere than it is. He also did not anticipate running into a landmass before he reached the East Indies. Nevertheless, he called the aboriginal peoples he encountered in the new world "Indians." Returning home, though, Columbus was able to tell his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, that although he never did find India, he could confirm that the world was indeed round. I set out for India by going due east, via Frankfurt. I had Lufthansa business class. I knew exactly which direction I was going thanks to the GPS map displayed on the screen that popped out of the armrest of my airline seat. I landed safely and on schedule. I too encountered people called Indians. I too was searching for the source of India's riches. Columbus was searching for hardware-precious metals, silk, and spices-the source of wealth in his day. I was searching for software, brainpower, complex algorithms, knowledge workers, call centers, transmission protocols, breakthroughs in optical engineering-the sources of wealth in our day. Columbus was happy to make the Indians her met his slaves, a pool of free manual labor. I just wanted to understand why the Indians I met were taking our work, why they had become such an important pool for the outsourcing of service and information technology work from America and other industrialized countries. Columbus had more than one hundred men on his three ships; I had a small crew from the Discovery Times channel that fit comfortably into two banged-up vans, with Indian drivers who drove barefoot. When I set sail, so to speak, I too assumed that the world was round, but what I encountered in the real India profoundly shook my faith in that notion. Columbus accidentally ran into America but thought he had discovered part of India. I actually found India and thought many of the people I met there were Americans. Some had actually taken American names, and others were doing great imitations of American accents at call centers and American business techniques at software labs. Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife, and only in a whisper. "Honey," I confided, "I think the world is flat."
Continues...
Excerpted from The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]by Thomas L. Friedman Copyright © 2006 by Thomas L. Friedman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
|
|
|
3
4
5
