The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: 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 [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Book Review: Amazing
Summary: 4 Stars
Thomas Friedman has truly outdone himself with this one, this is a fantastic description of how the world has/is evolving. It has truly sparked my interest in outsourcing and provided me with numerous interesting tales to add to the occasional conversation.Book Review: Quality Analysis
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is very well done. Thomas Friedman has put in alot of time in analyzing this book, it contains alot of information, that definitely get one stimulated and should force one to go on nice long thoughts about how the world is changing. All in all this is a great book though long, it contains some excellent information, i would recommend reading it slowly. Pace urself and u will find it enjoyable.Book Review: The World is Flat
Summary: 4 Stars
This book has made me afraid to stay in America. I read the book and now I want to move to china or india so bad.
this book got tedious after awhile. I had to keep my eyes from closing and my mind from running somewhere else while I read. In a sense, he kept retelling what he already said in the beginning and almost all of his interviews are from Indian CEOs or Chinese CEOs. Some of the facts I learned from this book are quite surprising.
While I was reading this book, I was overcome by a really big urge to go up to Pres. Bush and slap him.
Overall I liked this book for only the new facts I learned, but other than that it was pretty tedious.
Book Review: Absolutely Fantastic Piece!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an absolutely fantastic book on globalization and the frightening and inspiring realities of its growing potential. A great piece.Book Review: Typical Business Journalism
Summary: 2 Stars
This is pretty typical business journalism, which seems to be in the mold of the last round of "sky is falling" business journalism from the 1980's...when Japan was going to rule the world. I thought this book was going to be something new, but its just the same-old, same-old: US jobs are going oversees, we don't have enough engineers, republicans are ruining the country, blah, blah, blah. Also, the book is pretty sloppy: its overly long and redundant, and the "research" is not at all comprehensive or balanced, but mostly just opinion from various business honchos with views biased by their own business interests.
It is written from a very U.S.-centric view of the world, namely that the role of the rest of the world is to do the grunt work that we're too talented and creative to do, and also with a certain amazement that there are people in other countries as smart, or smarter, than us! I find it inconsistent as well, with one chapter lamenting the decline of U.S. science and engineering education and how this will be our downfall in the flat world, and another chapter promoting liberal arts education, and "story telling", as the keys to success in the flat world. Also, the flat world in this tome seems to be made up almost exclusively of IT workers: what about the transportation industry, or other traditional, but still relevant industries?
Overall, an interesting topic with some nice observations, but in need of a major editing and more credible research. Also, it is better viewed as a discussion of trends in IT outsourcing, rather than a map of where the world as a whole is headed.