"The World Is Flat" is Thomas L. Friedman's account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before--creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place. This updated and expanded edition features more than a hundred pages of fresh reporting and commentary, drawn from Friedman's travels around the world and across the American heartland--from anyplace where the flattening of the world is being felt.
In "The World Is Flat," Friedman at once shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive" (Robert Wright, Slate) and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, he explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; how governments and societies can, and must, adapt; and why terrorists want to stand in the way. More than ever, "The World Is Flat" is an essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists. Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at "The New York Times." 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: Exploring the World After September 11." He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family. Winner of the "Financial Times"/Goldman Sachs Book Award
A "New York Times "Notable Book
A "Christian Science Monitor "Best Book of the Year
A "Washington"" Post" Best Book of the Year
An "Economist" Best Book of the Year
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning "New York Times" columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. "The World Is Flat" is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists. This updated and expanded edition of Friedman's 2005 bestseller features a hundred new pages of fresh reporting, insights, and commentary, drawn both from his 2005 travels (to India, to China, to the Middle East) and from his encounters with readers around the country, who have shared their accounts of the flattening of the world as it is being felt in the American heartland. Among the topics covered are: - An explanation of Friedman's conviction that the flattening of the world "will be seen in time as one of those fundamental shifts or inflection points, like Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, the rise of the nation-state, or the Industrial Revolution." (Chapter 1) - A preview of the emerging "Business Web," in which companies "rent" software at websites like Salesforce.com and have it customized to their needs instead of developing proprietary software and employing a tech department to install it--a huge savings in cost and effort. (Chapter 2) - An explanation of "uploading" as one of the ten forces that are flattening the world. Uploading--blogging, open-source software, pooled knowledge projects like Wikipedia, and now podcasting--enables individuals to bring their experiences and opinions to the whole world more quickly, cheaply, and easily than ever before. (Chapter 2) - A definitive explanation of the "triple convergence," in which the flattening of the world has knocked out first the walls, then the ceilings, and now the floors that defined the world as it was before the Wall came down and the flattening began (Chapter 3); and a deeper, sharper explanation of how the move from a vertically organized world to a horizontally organized one will force a "great sorting out" of our values and priorities. (Chapter 4) - A mapping of what Friedman calls the "New Middle"--the places and spaces in the flat world where middle-class jobs will be found--and an account of the character types who will thrive as "New Middler": collaboration and orchestrators; synthesizers, who blend knowledge across disciplines; explainers, who interpret the tide of new knowledge; leveragers, who can create value from it; adapters, who can move from one New Middle job to the next in the flat world. (Chapter 6) - A chapter-long account of "The Right Stuff"--the qualities American parents and teachers need to cultivate in American young people so that they will be able to thrive in the