The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

This book is an analysis of business, economics, and education in the modern world, in which all individuals on the planet seem more closely connected through technology than ever before. Conceptually, the book is divided into 2 parts. In the first part, entitled "How the World Became Flat," Friedman enumerates ten forces which have led to greater connectedness (or "flatness," in the sense of a level-playing field for all, regardless of nationality or location). These forces include: the fall of the Berlin wall, the creation of Web browses and servers, software that enables collaboration on computing tasks, the ability of individuals to create and publish content independently, outsourcing, and insourcing (in which individuals or companies enlist the aid of other companies to give them the capability of serving and competing in international markets). In the second part of the book, Friedman analyzes some of the implications of a flat world for America, for developing countries, for business, and for politics. Friedman's analysis of the new level playing field for businesses and the implications for individuals is quite engrossing. While I had noticed many of these changes myself, I had never lined them all up together before to see the big picture as Friedman has. Five years ago I never would have imagined myself an entrepreneur, running a business that serves an international clientele, but the forces that Friedman describes have both led me into starting a business, and helped me develop it. Friedman's analysis of economic factors will be invaluable as I think about expanding or branching out into other products and services. He points out that whether they are aware of it or not, virtually every business is now competing in a global marketplace. To survive, it's not enough to be a decent provider of traditional products and services at a rate acceptable to local markets, since more than ever before, others elsewhere are trying to find ways to provide such services at a lower cost, and technology makes it possible for workers halfway around the globe to compete in what once were local marketplaces. As Rajesh Rao told Friedman in interview for this book, "There are dozens of people who are doing the same thing you are doing, and they are trying to do it better. It is like water in a tray, you shake it and it will find the path of least resistance. That is what is going to happen to so many jobs--they will go to that corner of the world where there is the least resistance and the most opportunity." I found the chapter on Walmart and its development of a highly efficient supply-chain extremely interesting, since instead of being bogged down with the ideology of Walmart bashing, Friedman examines how the company became so successful (and it wasn't simply the rationing of healthcare to its workers or a desire to demolish downtowns). Friedman argues that outsourcing and offshoring should not be taken as problems for America to solve through legislation, but rather as challenges that must be met through creativity and willingness to innovate. In this book, Friedman is more openly pro-globalization than in any of his previous books. He argues that rather than keeping undeveloped countries poor, globalization allows such countries the chance to develop. Against the charge that Third World workers are subject to sweatshop conditions, and products are made with child labor, Friedman points out business alliances who have set their own minimal standards for labor and worker safety. (Too bad the WTO couldn't adopt such standards as the condition for free trade concessions.) Friedman notes that American workers may lose their jobs to globalization through outsourcing and offshoring, but he quotes David Rothkopf "most jobs are not lost to outsourcing to India or China--most lost jobs are `outsourced to the past.'" Thus, Friedman argues parents and teachers need to do the best possible job to prepare students for the job market of the future, in which students will have to compete on a level playing field with foreign nationals while new technology is constantly being adopted. Craig Barrett of Intel warns "Standard of living is related to the average value add of your workforce, and that is related to average educational level of your workforce. If you downgrade the average educational level of your workforce, relative to your competition, your standard of living will decline." Friedman points out the value of trust in today's marketplace, noting that "trust is the foundation of innovation and entrepreneurship." I felt this point should have received even more stress in this book. For a few years, I taught Web development in the Middle East. My students learned how to create Web sites capable of e-commerce, but what was the point? Their brick and mortar marketplaces are so lacking in trust, that it was laughable for them to ever conceive of running the kinds of e-commerce Websites hosted in the US. Here, our level of trust has enabled mail order businesses to be successful for over 100 years, and it was a fairly simply jump from catalog orders to e-commerce. But in a culture where there is an adversarial relationship between merchant and customer in face-to-face transactions, where each wonders if money and product will surrendered as agreed, and where the merchant absolves himself from all responsibility for the quality of the product once he gets the money in hand, e-commerce will never be more than a pipe-dream. When considering who will be the winners and losers of the global marketplace of the future, trust and trustworthiness will play at least as important a role as access to technology and ability to use it. This book is a weighty tome, both physically as well as conceptually. Reading it is a project in itself, but the material contained in it is essential for citizens of the 21st century.

First, before you read another word, if you are buying this book, you want the expanded and updated version, which was published on April 18, 2006. It has another 100 pages that are not in any other versions. These 100 pages by itself are worth the entire cost of the book. Also make sure you read the section on terrorism, Friedman is as good as it gets on this subject. Now having said that, how often in a lifetime do you come across people that REALLY make you THINK? People who CHALLENGE the assumptions that underpin the entire framework upon which each of us has to understand, interpret, and ACT ON the world. This is Tom Friedman's gift to us. Even if he's not completely right, it matters only that he has the rest of us thinking about what he's saying, and for this we should be grateful. You want to read this book if: 1) You find a compelling need to understand what telecommunications, and the new information age means to you, me, and the rest of us? 2) You find it important to know if you and I are going to be able to do the work we are doing right now for the rest of our lives? 3) You want to know if the United States is going to continue to be the world's only superpower with hegemony over different areas of the world, and technology. 4) You want to know if we are in fact at an INFLECTION POINT (Andy Grove -Intel), where the world as we know it is about to change radically in ways we can not currently envision? Are these questions important to YOU? I believe these are vital questions, that each of us has to explore and make decisions about, and then EXECUTE what is best for each of us. Tom Friedman does an extraordinary job in conveying to you the state of the world as it really is, not as we would like it to be, or as our politicians would like us to believe. It would seem that some readers are not happy with Friedman? They find him arrogant, too intellectual, just full of himself, and irritating. This isn't about the messenger - it's about the MESSAGE The message is one of hope, but we have to be listening. What has happened very simply is that a trillion dollars worth of new high-tech telecommunications cables were installed around the world in the late 1990's, with no real intended purpose, except there was the money to be spent. It then became apparent that you could talk via telephone or computer across the planet for the SAME COST as someone 200 feet away in your neighbor's home - The world was never the same again, or as the book's title indicates, THE WORLD IS FLAT. CHEAP Bandwidth and the Internet - CHANGED EVERYTHING Friedman gives you the whole story. You can now get an x-ray, or CAT scan in a hospital in Iowa at 3AM, and have an Indian doctor 12 time zones away interpret the results for you real time at 1/20th of the cost. Your child needs tutoring. You can have a PhD tutor your child on the telephone from India for $10 per hour, rather than $50 or a $100 per hour here. The world is changing certainly. You either get on the train and go with it, or you get taken out by that train as it sweeps by. Either way, you are not going to stand still according to Friedman. Look at the website you are reading right now. You can read reviews and access any book, and have it delivered to your within days without leaving your front porch. You can even download many books them instantly. You can obtain the knowledge of the universe while sitting on a river in Montana, or a cattle ranch in Texas. This is fantastic, and this is indeed transforming the way we think, act, and execute. You Can't Ignore Friedman, but you can't EXTRAPOLATE the future either!!! Friedman talks about, how many people seem preoccupied with the notion of China and India overtaking the United States, and or the world changing to become something we don't recognize today. If there is one thing that is certain about the future, it is that you cannot take what you see right now, and extrapolate into the future. Life just doesn't work that way. The United States is the only country in history that imports more people and makes them citizens of America, than the rest of the world COMBINED. Think about it, we are in a constant state of REJUVENATION. No other country can begin to claim this. In addition this country produces genius level individuals greater than any other country, witness the sheer number of Nobel Prize winners, and the innovations that just don't happen anywhere else. Whether it's the invention of the Internet, the PC, vaccines, new media, or managerial ways of thinking and executing. It's all happening here, and probably will, for decades to come. Read Tom Friedman, embrace the future, and enjoy a remarkable new world, just as Columbus, the Mayflower settlers, and our founding fathers enjoyed. Tom Friedman provides a roadmap, but only up to a point. How the rest of the story gets written is up to us. Good luck. Richard Stoyeck

Going through some of the critical reviews of this book, it appears the reviewers fall into two categories: 1. Those with ADD who are used to reading New Yorker articles or blog posts. 2. Techies who are overqualified to read anything non-technical. (sarcasm) The book is a bit longer than necessary, however, Friedman has composed it in a fashion that is easy to follow, well written, and full of interesting details and conversations. For me, one quality of a great book is the amount of thought and reflection it inspires while reading and more importantly, after. No one can predict the future and this book isn't one that does. What it clearly succeeds in is demonstrating the general trend of the global landscape brought on by the internet. The addition of countries like India and China into the global communications infrastructure has empowered a massive pool of talent with opportunities that they did not have before, and this has and will continue to make things more competitive for both individuals and established institutions. Understanding the trend and moving in that direction is much better than fighting. Just looking at the impact of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to empower the people recently in the Middle East, many of Friedman's points are vindicated. I have bought copies of this book for family members and friends and believe it's a must read for parents with young children who want to best prepare them to compete and succeed in the competitive global landscape of the future. The only reason I give this book 4 stars is the sections on al-Qaeda and terrorism which were the only part of the book that felt forced and dragged. Considering the situation back then, however, I can see why Friedman may have felt the need to include this subject.

When asked what he would tell his children about globalization, Thomas Friedman said his parents used to tell him to eat his dinner "because there were starving people in China that would be grateful to have it". He now suggests that we should be telling our children: "Do your homework because there are eager people in India and China that would love to take your job away." This book is a powerful, detailed explanation about the forces that have flattened the world and the skills that we need to acquire if we are going to survive in the resulting competitive environment. Flatteners include the fall of the Berlin wall and the resulting openness between East and West; the arrival of web browsers to allow easy access to the internet; workflow software that allows for the creation of "all-world supply chains"; uploading as a way individuals can contribute to the larger community (e.g. open source, YouTube); outsourcing and the way it promoted international collaboration; offshoring; supply-chaining; insourcing--his term for integrating other companies into your own infrastructure; search tools that bring information to our fingertips and numerous technological multipliers that have heightened all these effects through advances in communication, digitization, videoconferencing etc. Freidman gives countless detailed illustrations that make his points. We learn how Wal-Mart and UPS, Dell and Netscape do business. He describes how India and Ireland (yes- Ireland) have lept ahead in high tech jobs by emphasizing superior educational opportunities. He describes how 60% of all bachelor's degrees earned in China are in Science and Engineering, compared to 31% in the U.S. He describes the role culture, politics and religion have had particularly since 9/11. The most helpful part of the book describes the skills we will need to survive. There will always be a demand for people who are: Collaborators, synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, adapters, passionate personalizers and localizers. These high-end skills that emphasize creative thinking, problem visualization and solution can't be outsourced, digitized or automated out of existence. Thanks to his reputation, Friedman has had access to heads of state, CEOs, top scientists and politicians across the world. The result is a solid analysis that is eye-opening. "You can flourish in this flat world, but it does take the right imagination and the right motivation."

Friedman does an excellent job of observing changes in the global economy and society that have been little noticed or understood. I believe that if the world were in a much earlier stage of the "oil era", Friedman's book would be extremely valuable in anticipating much of the changes in human society over the next several decades. However, I believe much of that change will be overshadowed by the "peak oil" phenomenon. The contenion is that while global demand for oil continues to rise, world production capacity is reaching its peak, putting us on a path for severe increases in energy prices. A number of books have discussed the likely implications of that, one of which is the decline of globalization and a transition to a society that is more local and works on a level of lower complexity. I believe this will be the dominant factor in determining the course of society for at least a few decades. Most likely a time will come along in the future where a bountiful supply of energy has been created, and then society is likely to resume its course along the lines that Friedman has outlined. Regarding globalization, I believe the oil drought will lead to a major decline in global trade involving manufactured goods. On the other hand, the globalization of the information economy may largely continue to proceed as it is currently. Which aspects of globalization collapse and which continue I believe will revolve around which require heavy energy consumption. It takes little energy to ship photons around the world, but it takes a lot to ship manufactured goods on ships. I nevertheless give Friedman's book 5 stars, because within the scope of what he has studied, he has done very significant work. And, I believe it is relevant both in giving us a better understanding of where we are today, and also of where society will be at some point in the future. However, I expect that much of it will be overridden by other circumnstances for the next several decades.

After more than a thousand reviews, the best I can do is offer my take on the book. While the book is great for a person who is completely unfamiliar with globalization or wants a summary of Friedman's views on it and the world, the book is of little value to a person who keeps up with the world around him/her. If you are a person who is aware of what is going on the world today, then this book will appear to be too indulgent towards China and India with the troubling tendency of generalizing. Friedman generalizes, for example, regarding important cultural and economic aspects to globolization in many parts of the world. While he notes that cultural role in globalization is seldom mentioned in regards to its impact in rise and fall of nations, he then proceeds to use culture to generalize regarding Chinese, Indian, Mexican, etc. economies. It's always dangerous to generalize, especially when one writes about a subject as sensitive as a country's culture leading to greater or lesser prosperity. While on the surface, pun intended, Friedman's examination seems to make sense, it really falls flat when one realizes that while the world may be growing ever closer together, the cultural diversity and inter-country complexity cannot be summed up with nice generalizations and by tours made for a receptive American journalist ready to glorify anything he is shown. The book could very easily be re-titled "Why China is Great!" or "Why Authoratitive Governments Work and Democracies Fail." Just recently, in September of 2009, Friedman wrote an article praising China's one-party autocracy, saying that it was "led by a reasonably enlightened group of people" and that China's leaders are "boosting gasoline prices" and "overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power." When asked if he had "China envy" during a Fresh Dialogues interview, Friedman replied, "You detect the envy of someone who wants his own government to act democratically with the same effectiveness that China can do autocratically." Such talk may be fine, if Friedman was actually an accomplished economist or provided a balanced view of China's successes and faults. Instead, Friedman brushes China's currency concerns and represiveness (among other things) aside with a unbismirched praise. Same is true for India, which albeit the world's largest democracy, still has people occupying untouchable castes. Praise these countries if you will, but acting like a school boy who just had a wet dream is quite another matter. The world is flat is a nice metaphore, but politics and economy is not flat or simple and Friedman's attempts to make it so makes the book an overbearing read. While Friedman may have multiple Pulitzers, these are for his short articles, definetly not his book (and two of his Pulitzers are over 20 years old). And besides Friemdan got his BA in Mediterranean studies and master in Middle Eastern studies. Not something that would lend one to so brashly make economic and cultural pronouncements on a large swaths of global populations. His wife may be a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, but he is quite obviously not his wife. While many of Friedman's points are right on the money, e.g., making U.S. start moving forward as far as educational reforms, he takes too many liberties with socio-economic analysis of other nations.

Thomas Friedman is like a voice crying in the wilderness. There is a revolution going on and no one seems to notice. Maybe that's because it is a 'virtual' revolution, of information transfer over fiber optics, connecting a large percentage of the world together. Its implications are no less, he says, than the Industrial Revolution which took place over 100 years ago. The internet and the fall of the Berlin Wall have produced a network empowered by strong informational, connective and uploading capabilities, a 'horizontalization' that crosses company and country boundaries, individuals linked with other individuals to get things done, both positive and negative. Governments are going to have to get with the program or there will be more cultural and international upheavals than we even want to think about. For one thing, it means that the Third World is going to move into the First World and the competition for energy and other resources is going to be intense. Also, the terrorists have this new found way to exercise and organize their evil power. But, on the positive side, it might reduce the possiblity of international conflict since so many important supply chains now tie countries together economically. I was impressed with the work that went into this book, both the interesting stats on nearly every page, as well as the interviews with people like Bill Gates, Colin Powell, and Paul Vivek, the President of Wipro Technologies, the outsourcing company in India. He posited many political solutions to our changing world, many of which I disagreed with. It's just my opinion, but I don't think socialism (an example, wage insurance for workers displaced by outsourcing) is the answer for the US. But at least he is thinking about these things,and I hope it is a wake-up call for us all. The voice crying in the wilderness needs to be heard.

This is easily the most relevant book written on the new realities of business globalization, its irreversibility, and the practical consequences to our future. Friedman does an excellent job describing the numerous factors that led up to our current global economy including the ongoing fall of communism, the advent of the personal computer, and the ubiquity of the Internet. His historical review and assessment is fascinating and it sets up the reader to understand the context for his theories and practical applications. Friedman delves into numerous industries, businesses, personalities, case studies, technologies, psychological factors, and sociological factors. Although he covers numerous business, technological, and economic concepts, his writing style is very engaging and entertaining, using many personal examples and narratives, thereby holding the reader's interest. Rather than bemoaning some of the common perceived negative consequences of a global economy (such as US auto workers losing jobs to overseas cheaper labor) Friedman helps the reader to understand business globalization's irreversibility. In so doing, he describes many personal, practical, and business strategies for thriving in this new environment. Friedman is realistic and compassionate concerning the changes and the challenges. He states, "the great challenge for our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people but also do not leave them behind. None of this will be easy. But this is our task. It is inevitable and unavoidable" (pp. 46-47). As Friedman unfolds his strategies, he gives the reader a broader, global perspective that is filled with hope and excitement. Whether as a CEO, a business student, or a brand new professional embarking upon a career, this book is insightful, practical, and essential reading.

good, as expected

ある方に紹介頂きました。 結構読み応えありました、今後活用して行きます。

One of my favorite books about globalization if you read Jules Verne amazing journeys, Thomas L. Friedman explained how thw global World works.

Yes, a good book. But the title is misleading. It is not what I wanted. I wanted oranges, I got tomatoes. I can cook, I can manage. But titles have to be a window into the book. And the title opens to a landscape that is not what the title says.

Biased views almost promoting polarization. Some interesting facts.