The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Book Review: "God Bless America"
Summary: 3 Stars
A member of the U.S. Congess donated a photograph to a local shop in Cape Town. He wrote across the bottom: "God bless America." Little did he understand what these words would mean in Cape Town: "America? Should God not bless the world?" The photograph would seem an appropriate metaphor for this book. The idea for the book was born when author Tom Friedman, a celebrated journalist, investigated outsourcing to India -- proof that "intellectual capital" may be delivered "from anywhere". As a result, he considered that "the global competitive playing field was being leveled" -- and decided to pursue the trend.
Is the world really flat (or flattening)? Is it flattening competitively, as Friedman suggests? Early on in the book, Friedman alluded to the dark side of such "flattening". He wrote: "But contemplating the flat world also filled me with dread . . ." My own first thoughts were: "Perhaps he thinks of the avarice of the West, or the deceitfulness and destruction of empire?" Yet he was thinking exclusively of "Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks". This seemed bound to be a one-dimensional book. Did his attitude change as he developed his theme? Essentially, no. Some four hundred pages later, his main concern was "a fundamental interest in keeping the American dream alive".
Friedman considers that there have been "ten forces that flattened the world". #1. The "balance of power across the world" has tipped towards democracy. #2. "The computer and its connectivity [has become] inherently more useful for millions of people". #3. Connectivity has enabled "work flow" to be distributed worldwide. These flatteners, in turn, have empowered "new forms of collaboration", which represent Flatteners #4 to #9. Finally, Flattener #10 serves to amplify "all the other flatteners": the fast advancing digital revolution.
Friedman "always believed in free trade". Should he now? In Bangalore, he looked across "these Indian Zippies", and considered: "Oh, my God, there are so many of them." His first thought: he would not want "any American" to suffer. However, "the way to succeed is not by stopping the railroad line from connecting you, but by upgrading your skills and making the investment[s]". So the advantage comes down to skills and investments. I wondered whether Friedman missed a page in Economics 101, titled "Terms of Trade". He might have spotted the New International Economic Order (NIEO), and how industrialised countries, led by the U.S., opposed much of the agenda, tipping the world scales in their favour.
This book would seem to represent a sobering example of the propaganda of empire -- not to speak of how the deception of empire swallows those who indwell it. Not only is this a book by a celebrated journalist. He won the approval of the Pulitzer Prize committee three times -- which would represent, presumably, the opinions of a large swathe of the U.S.A. I had suspected that such thinking might exist in the U.S.A. This book provides disturbing insight.
Book Review: A worthwhile book which comes across as extremely well researched, teeming with interesting facts and fresh, important ideas.
Summary: 4 Stars
Flat. So what does that mean? Well, if you are travelling Delta airlines or British Airways, and you need to talk to lost-luggage, when you make your call you are talking to someone in Bangalore. In India. There are some 250,000 people working in call centres in India, dealing with issues from all around the world. Often, when you ring customer-service, re you new computer or whatever, you may think you are ringing someone down the street, or at least in your own country. Chances are you are talking to someone in India. And consider the following staggering fact. There is a McDonald's drive-through restaurant in Missouri where, in the drive-in lane, when you roll down your window to speak into the microphone to place your order, the person you are talking to is not in the restaurant, but in a call centre 1,450 kilometres away, in Colorado ! The call centre person relays your order back to the restaurant, and by the time you drive to the collection point, your meal is ready. Apparently this service is faster, and creates fewer mistakes, than the in-house system. The really, really mind boggling thing is that, before long, that call centre could also be in Bangalore, in India, from where the service would work equally well, and be considerably cheaper, than from Colorado. That is what Thomas Friedman (TF) means by a Flat World. He means a smaller world. A world where because of fundamentally changing technologies, we are now not just competing with the local guys and gals for our jobs, or with the other firms in our own country for that order that we need so badly; we are now competing with people on the far side of the world, who often can do our jobs better, faster and cheaper than we can. Sobering stuff. This book is about globalisation and how it has changed our lives, and particularly how it will impact on the futures of the youngsters of today.
There is a fantastic amount of information in this book and a seemingly limitless number of TF's opinions and ideas. And I have to say that a huge amount of what he says makes excellent sense. There are many mature and useful reflections in the final section of the book, although for a book on globalisation it is a little ironic, to a European at least, to find that the book is, more-or-less, self-confessed as being a warning bell specifically for Americans. However, since it looks like there are going to be winners and losers in the globalised world, as there have always been in the non-globalised one, it makes sense that we should look at how the rules of play have changed (and they have definitely changed), if we want to stay in the game. (Nothing like a few cliches.) I am at a stage in my life where, while these issues are of real interest to me, they will have little personal impact. But I can't help wondering how things will be for my grandchildren, the eldest of whom is now seven. The world is different for them than it was 20 years ago for me, not simply in terms of degree, but fundamentally. This book explains how.
Quibbles? Well, I found the number of times that the word "flat" is used, in some form, (flat, flatten, flattening, flattener etc) eventually became irritating. I also think that TF has a tendency to construct a science out of his opinions, assigning terms to ideas as if they were newly discovered laws e.g. "The Ten Forces that Flattened the World"; "The Triple Convergence". There is more of that type of thing. Again, I found it a bit irritating at times. And I found the book a little repetitious. Perhaps he could have dropped 100 pages. But my overall view is positive. It's a worthwhile book which comes across as extremely well researched, teeming with interesting facts and fresh, important ideas.
Book Review: good story, good presentation, but not deep enough
Summary: 4 Stars
Mr. Friedman tells wonderful stories about our changing world. It is very nicely presented, which offers some provocative thoughts on current global affairs, especially relations between the rich and poor nations. Good read, but its ideas are not deep enough. Also, his understanding about China and India, among others, is not insightful, which is a common weakness for books written by long distance observers. For this, a far more insightful and relevant book is: China and the New World Order, by a well known Chinese reporter George Zhibin Gu, which offers vast cutting-edge ideas on current China, India and global affairs. To me, both books are essential read.Book Review: America's fear of the world
Summary: 3 Stars
"The world is flat" is one of the more overrated business book's I have read recently. The primary focus on the 10 factors that supposedly has flattened the world, suffers from the same problem of many other retrospective books. Its Friedman's opinions not researched facts. The flatteners are described based on stories of companies who had succeeded. If the flatteners where to have credibility, they should have been published first, and then used by a number of companies. Then again, the first part of the book it more of a history lesson than anything else.
The second part of the book primarily describes the US business leaders' inability to adapt new managerial styles combined with the inherent problem with a country that lacks educational opportunities for the majority of the population. Many of Friedman's new and innovative solutions to business problem in the US are based alone on cutting cost. This clearly demonstrates the inability of US business leaders to be innovative. The US managerial style to profit in business is the discount WallMart model with more for less. An approach that leaves US businesses crippled and open for hostile take over or filing chapter 11. If work and services truly move to the part of the world where it is done best and cheapest, next up are the CEO of all the major US based companies. The huge compensations packages they receive without providing worker, shareholder or the community with value tags their job as up for global sourcing. India, China or South Africa all have highly educated business leader at a fraction of the cost of a US executive.
Book Review: What a trivial book...
Summary: 1 Stars
It is amazing what books receive what one could consider an important award in the form of the FT/Goldman Sachs prize these days.
An American journalist ventures abroad and looks beyond the boundaries of a self-centred nation, and writes a book about it on trends he perceives that this has on America (and the world). How fascinating...
I must admit that I gave up reading the book relatively quickly, although thoroughly bored on a long-distance flight. After starting, getting annoyed with trivial observations and arguments, jumping pages in the hope to after all find some genuine insights but finally could not help it and gave up.
Although, not having read this fine piece of literature to the end must disqualify me from writing a review and I must admit that I found the inflight shopping magazine a more interesting read.