Customer Reviews

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

5 star:		(95)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

No doubt, Friedman will get you thinking.

You may end up thinking Friedman has really informed you on what this grand notion of "globalization" is all about. His book has reached millions, including leaders in business government and education, many who now feel fully informed on the subject.

But, just stop to consider his "base assumptions," the 10 so-called flatteners. Most aren't new at all and some fundamental flatteners such as containerized shipping aren't mentioned at all (see The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger). (nevermind the consequences when the end of cheap eneregy flattens the global logistics routes)

So, go ahead and read this book, but when you are finished, and especially if you are awed, I'd suggest you consider reading Aronica and Ramdoo's critical analysis of Friedman's book. It just could make you "think again," even about those so-called 10 flatteners.

The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman

Aronica and Ramdoo will also point you to the true thought leaders on globalization, and summarize their take on Friedman's book: Stiglitz (Nobel Prize in economics), Baghwati(Columbia Professor), Prestowitz (Presidential Trade Advisor), Lemer (UCLA Professor), Ghemawat (Harvard Professor), Roach (Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley), Palast (Investigative Reporter, UK)and others.

So, thank Friedman for an entertaining read, and using his status as a celebrity pundit for making us all aware of the great reorganization the world is going through. But, please don't stop there, for there is far more to the unfolding story of globalization, and all of us are being affected.

Our world has come a long way, not just since the proverbial "beginning of time," but in the last 20, 10, 5 and even 3 years since this book was first published. In "The World is Flat," Thomas Friedman very consciensiously and enthusiastically paints a picture of the detailed landscape of the current world through the eyes of business, technology, cultural and social development. I have traditionally found the topics of globalization, outsourcing and economics dry and rather boring, but the author brings them to life and makes them relevant to each of our lives in a way that is truly captivating. There are countless examples of this in the book, from the impact of the usage of the personal computer to a creative lemonade salesman at a baseball game to Big Macs vs. pizza.

This book filled me with ideas, thoughts and concepts that I had never before imagined and I came away excited about the possibilities that exist in my own hands. I was really struck by the conversation about the urgent value for Americans to exercise their right brain: to do what you love, to invent, create, relate, express, empathize. The point Friedman emphasizes is: "Now that foreigners can do left-brain work cheaper, we in the U.S. must do right-brain work better." This idea made me think of two other authors, Ariel & Shya Kane, who have had a huge effect on how I relate to my life and approach my personal well-being, and whose books also introduced concepts that also completely blew my mind.

The Kanes' technology of Instantaneous Transformation, the phenomenon that occurs when you are truly present and directly engaged in your life and causes problems, stress, worry & fear to dissolve, is another contributor to the flattening of the world. They address the gap between the things that we do, learn and know and what it means to truly 'be': certainly a skill unique to each person in the world. If you enjoy "The World is Flat," check out the Kanes' books, Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment and How To Create a Magical Relationship. I HIGHLY recommend them all!

I am surprised by how many reviewers described this book as "well written." I found it extremely wordy. The content to word ratio here is extremely low. The ideas in this book could have (and should have) been expressed in 150 pages or less. Instead Friedman drones on for close to 600 pages. The extreme length would have been justified if the book had gone into detail about certain topics or provided more rigorous analysis of different points of view. Instead its 600 pages of high level fluff. Does anyone really need a 600 page tome to tell them we are doing a lot of business with India? Is making a point concisely a lost art? Was Friedman paid by the word? Can I find an Indian gentleman to write me an executive summary of this leviathan?

I picked up this book without reading any reviews on it hoping that I would get a neutral view and take on the phenomena of globalization. Now I wish I hadn't and I really wish Thomas Friedman hadn't "expanded and updated" the book - twice.

As I wanted to read a neutral book, I will give as neutral a review as possible.

His writing is engrossing, no doubt, and he makes very solid (while very obvious) points about what, who, and how globalization came to be and continues to advance. Within the first 300 pages or so, I really didn't take away anything new except a few of his personal delightful stories to use as examples of his points.

And then . . . came in the non-neutrality. He began making statements about Bush and other things that just leave a bad taste your mouth. Within the rest of the context of the book it seemed like he really didn't have to go into political scuttlebut. Typically it seems journalists have more credibility when they do not do as he did. Also, he points out some examples of (obvious) problems, but lots of his suggested solutions seem unrealistic; which is probably why I have still yet to see any of them come to be used. Some suggestions and prose were good, but the bad outweighed them.

Many times I found myself reading the same points over and over again in the same section. It seemed to me that he would grind many of them in so much and really drag on many of the chapters or sections that did not need to be as long to get the point across. An example of this (and I don't have the book right in front of me to point out the page numbers) is when he even uses the same word over 12 times in 2 1/2 pages to describe something. Not very flattering and it made the sentence structure hard to follow through.

At one point he uses Ireland as an example of the best country in a "reform retail" (a stage of economy used to boost economies in globalization) continuously refering to Ireland's economic stature to prove this. His 3.0 version was published in 2007. Ireland declared bankputcy in 2008 and was bailed out by the EU and IMF by 2010. I thought to myself "Really? You used Ireland as a prime example of what to do in a globalizing economy? If anything you should republish your book 4.0 and ommit a good portion of it." I was so profoundly moved by this rediculousness that I sent an email to him through the New York Times asking him his take on Irelands situation now . . . I have yet to receive a response.

Overall, his personal accounts about globalization are entertaining in a fun-fact sort of way, but his old news, horrid latter half of the book, and failure to really tie certain factors of globalization together overtake the rest of what he writes. Again, I think it would have been better off without the "3.0 expanded and updated" and he really should have left out obvious political innuendo.

Thomas Fraudmann's fairytale about the flattening of the world is so utterly simplistic in its execution that he should only be another Sunday windbag that the various networks have on to speak on this subject. I guess the fact that America is broke and we have to keep borrowing money from Japan and China to keep the government running, has no relevance to the flat world. He touches on some of the problems but he misses the biggest problems such as the trade imbalance which is destroying our economy. His next book will probably be on the subject that Wall Street should not be trusted.

Well before I read this book a was a firm believer that outsource offered no benefits to the US, and it was simply taking jobs away. This book provided me with overwelming evidence that outsourcing is does have a negative effect in the short term, or long term only if you try to be resistent to the idea and that outsourcing should be seen as the a oportunity for to improve ourself as a country. But the problem lies in that fact that many US workers have simply become accustomed to the same jobs not wanting to improve or change and expect that the world would do the same. Outsourcing and globalization are coming and nothing and nobody will be able to stop it, resistance to change might delay it, but will not stop it, because it drivin by the ambition of human wanting a better life.

This book challenges you to think, rethink, act, and live in a whole new way during breakfast because it all happened while we were sleeping. The world is collaborating, and we can choose to collaborate or simply be left behind.

Friedman relies on personal anecdotes to generalize about a complex topic. His anecdotes are heavily biased, since he hangs around with captains of industry, who are big beneficiaries of laissez-faire globalization. He even justifies his approach with this quote: "One example is worth a thousand theories." Well, this topic is much too complex for such an approach. He is an entertaining (if very repetitive and self-absorbed) raconteur, but he misses the forest by spending over 600 pages congratulating himself for climbing a few low-hanging branches in the most obvious trees.

It is a mark of Friedman's approach and personality that he dates the beginning of "Flat World" phenomena to a few years ago, when he discovered them. He seems blissfully unaware of the long history of globalization. A few examples: 200 years ago, before refrigeration, North American entrepreneurs destroyed the English trade in domestic ice by building insulated ships and shipping New England ice to London (and even Calcutta); cheap water power and cotton in the US destroyed the British weaving trades 50 years later; 500 years ago, the takeover of Peruvian silver mines by Spanish entrepreneurs bankrupted silver production in Spain; there are countless examples of the effects of globalization from the Roman Empire's rise and fall as well (well-managed during the rise, disastrously so during the fall). Friedman's "born yesterday" myopia on this topic, and on the lessons of history, is puzzling.

Friedman glances by what is, in my mind, the central issue (e.g. the one that has the biggest impact on people): the different ways governments act and respond. He admits no expertise in economics, yet declares himself to be a Ricardian (without reflecting on the irony of a self-styled futurist relying on 200-year-old economic theory), and moves on. The rest of us, however, can learn a lot by looking at the differences and subtleties (or lack thereof) of governmental policies, a topic which is completely absent from Friedman's book. Asian countries, and to a lesser extent Western European countries, have created a regulatory environment that promotes a productive response in their own countries. Some examples:

If GM wants to sell cars in China or Europe, it is obligated to build a factory there, and transfer some of its technology to local partners. Intel has just announced that its next processor fab will be built in China; the economics of IC manufacturing is something I know quite a lot about, and labor costs are a negligible factor. Intel was forced to do this by Chinese economic policy, not by cheap Chinese labor. Ditto putting a previous Intel chip plant in Ireland when Intel started selling in volume in Europe. On the other hand, our own government has been a willing partner in the evisceration of American industrial and high-tech production. The governments of Asian and European countries shake their heads at our short-sightedness and short-term consumption greed.

I credit Friedman with making more people aware of this important topic. That earns him one star!

Several years ago after hearing praise heaped upon Mr. Friedman's work The World is Flat I purchased it and waded through the first hundred pages or so with increasing impatience as I awaited all the earth shattering insights that were said to await me. Well after reading the book I felt more along the lines of having purchased something from someone who demonstrated their firm grasp on the obvious. There are no earth shattering insights here. For anyone living, working or traveling in today's online, e-commerce, outsourced, off-shored world over the last 10-15 years you already know everything that Mr. Friedman seems to be so taken with. I kept asking myself why this all seemed to surprising to Mr. Friedman?

Apparently Mr. Friedman's book is marketed to those who do not get out much. I notice a lot of reviews suggest that the book is "well written". I have no objection to the writing but it did not strike me as being anything more then average. If a sense of "gee isn't all this stuff neat" equates to being well written then Mr. Friedman can consider mission accomplished.

I work in an semiconductor assembly site of a multinational. Because of the popularity of this book, being touted by top managers, using it as some sort of a faddish gospel, all our payment and purchasing transactions are now offshored to India.

As a result, there's so many scanning and duplicate work. It's very hard to make a follow-up to resolve an issue with India, when you cant speak in person. Sometimes, work are needlessly replicated just to complete a proper purchase-until-payment process. You cannot imagine how much time is lost.

Ive read the book myself. (I remembered an email from a business unit boss saying "that people whove read this have a great advantage to those who have not" when I was looking at the storeshelves). The writing is really convincing and it's a good, encouraging read. But after one year, Ive seen offshoring myself, and felt how terrible it is. I saw what Friedman skipped.

Friedman is really evangelizing his thesis without a single caveat. He even singled out these transactional-accounting things as should-be offshored first. But if you go down to the nitty-gritty, there are only minimal acctg transactions that can be offshored smoothly. Most activities should remain at site, depending on issues that are liable to happen. We lose a sense of ownership on resolving issues fast, as well, in the process of forcing vital analysis to a 'shared service center.'

If the author is open, I can guide him on the current mess we are in. Could have been better also for him to observe the catastrophe of transfer and endorsements, during the start/launch of offshore work.

I've admired Friedman's past writing, and I enjoyed "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" a lot. But this book cries out for the skilled hand of a ruthless editor. It's WAY too long and rambling for the content. Cut to half the length, it would be twice as good. Example: a 50-page intro chapter on how he came up with the title. Give me a break! I gave up about 1/3 of the way through.