Customer Reviews

The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge: Picking Globalism's Winners and Losers

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The author does an excellent job of suggesting a new civilization arising out of emerging technologies and expanding global economies. Using real life individuals and institutions, Zachary defines national diversity, a hybridity of cultures, and a cosmopolitan sense of self as positive traits for the new millineum and beyond. He shows that the new identity will result from migration, racial mixing and ethno-racial affiliations and how they will help determine winners and losers in the new century. While I agree in principle that a world in which nations openly embrace multiculturism are better positioned to alleviate economic stagnation and instill social cohesion, I hesitate to agree that these factors alone are priority in terms of the health and wealth of a country. This is particularly true given the speed at which technology is changing virtually everything in society. What is good today is not necessarily so good tomorrow. Remember the 8-track tape? Seen in this light, it begs the question of the conditions under which homogenous groups achieve compared to the conditions under which heterogenous ones do best. Its hard to imagine that during a crisis, a team of mixed cultural individuals could respond as fast as those from a homogenous one. On the other hand, it is very easily to see how the quality of results from mixed cultures would be superior to those of a one mindness. Thus while cultural-fluency will factor heavily into the failure or success of companies in a global economy, remember it is important to get the right mix. In the words of the author,"...countries struggle with diversity-too much can be harmful while too little harms growth and security".

The book is generally great. The author is open-minded. But he misused some unnecessary politics. E.g. he kept addressing Taiwan as a nation. And he regarded a group of cheaters (Fa Lun Gong)as religion. Obviously, God doesn't defy Newton's Laws, or I won't have faith in him. But Fa Lun Gong defy science.

The strength of diversity always had a religious quality for me. it was something i had to believe despite my natural inclination.

i am the person, as zachary described, who feels comfortable eating lunch with other koreans likes of me. sometimes i pressure myself to eat hamburgers with my white coworkers at the next table. i eat kimchee during lunch and worry about my breath afterward.

i work for a korean company even though my korean is limited and hate many things that are korean. i argue with my korean coworkers who exhibit outdated business customs from Korea. i openly disagree with my boss and write my memos in english despite alienating the headquarters staff.

i cannot imagine myself living in seoul, but dream of moving to sydney. my wife is from sydney but speaks excellent korean. i listen to korean mp3 files at my office, but turn the volume down when a japanese coworker walks in.

what i saw previously as contradictions and identity conflicts were the strengths of diversity that zachary described. i turned out to be the cosmopolitan that fuels the economic, politcal and cultural progress. i feel exonerated thanks to zachary.

I mostly enjoyed this book, which argues that hybrid nations will be the winners in the coming century. The book makes good arguments that people don't need to lose their roots in order to have wings. You can and should have a hybrid identity, and even though you change by having wings, you may become a better person. I agree with these arguments wholeheartedly. The book contains several examples showing hybrid identities of people all over the world, and these illustrations are very interesting to read. However, the thing I will remember the most about the book is not something positive. The book keeps mentioning Armenian genoside as a historical fact in several places, right after mentioning German genoside of Jews. I do not find the two events comparable to each other, and I think it is not fair to mention them in the same sentence. I wish the author could have been more considerate and knowledgable of the history and avoid such bold statements. This is not the place to discuss history, so I will not go on but I need to say I am disturbed. This made me question the accuracy of other information given in the book. The author says Americans have a selective memory about their history of their own country. I must add that this American has a distorted memory when it comes to the history of other countries. Which is a shame, because this is one thing the author criticizes in lesser developed nations (the use of history to create conflicts). Here is how it starts!!

Zachary is a journalist, and he surely writes like a journalist too. Things about Japan, although true, seems what has been said before, and are not as quite unique as other parts of the book. But there is nothing wrong with writing like a journalist. I really like those stores about so many interesting individuals who have mulitiple identities about their culture roots/wings. In my view, those stores themslves worth the money.

When it comes to fair comments about Americans, usually I won't count on Americans themslves, especially about immigration. Zachary boasts American embrace of immigrants, but his fellow Americans seems more like those living on the coasts. He didn't spend much time mentioning Congress' continuous slowness/hostility toward opening up immigration, even the non-immigrant H1B visa.

Overall this is a rare book that gives an excellent introduction of what shapes the globlism with stores about lots of interesting individuals.

With Internet and other telecommunications means increasing, world citizens are expecting to find the products they usually buy at home everywhere. Customization and/or Globalization is the main issues adressed by this book for multinational firms as well as for new internet ventures.