Product Description

Featuring nearly 100 pages of new information and analysis, this fully updated and expanded edition of three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedmans acclaimed international bestseller is the perfect guide to our fast-changing world. HBC Club Edition. 608 pp.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100962 in Books
• Published on: 2006
• Binding: Hardcover
• 608 pages

Customer Reviews

New Era of Globalization
The World is Flat provides a very interesting view that establishes Thomas Freidman's view of globalization in the world today. It is a very interesting read and gives a lot of background on his view of globalization in the world today. This book tells a lot of the new trends that are taking place in the world. He teaches Americans about how the world is becoming more flat by getting interconnected through globalization. It serves as a warning to Americans that the world is not the same place it used to be. No longer is America on top of the world in every aspect. As the world is becoming more interconnected, outsourcing is changing the world in every aspect. Many jobs such as secretarial tasks are being outsourced to India. Manufacturing jobs are being outsourced to China and other low wage countries. This means that the position of the United States in the global economy has changed greatly in the past few years and is still changing at even a greater speed today. He says that the increasing global and flat economy of the world are helping make the less industrialized nations have a level playing field. Increased globalization in forms of better communication will allow poor and less industrialized countries to compete equally with the more industrialized countries such as the United State and the rest of Western Europe. However, Friedman assumes that all counties want to be capitalist. This is very biased in this manner. Overall this is a must-read because of all the insight that it provides into the new global order. It is an interesting view on this increasing controversial topic of politics.

Whether you like it or not, globalism will affect you
While you were sleeping, the world woke up.

Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat" is an eye opener.

You will learn of entrepreneurs and opportunists throughout the world in India, China, Eastern Europe and other "Third World" locales, who are planning to eat your lunch!

Friedman's premise is the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rise of Internet technology has developed a flattened world, where boundaries of distance and borders have less and less relevance.

The book is a great wake-up call, and it is up to each of us, in the face of rising competition to determine what we as individuals will do about it.

Times of great change are also times of great opportunity.

The flat world as it evolves may be the most significant change in history, and the time of greatest opportunity.

Highly Recommended

More than just a book
Thomas Friedman writes a book that is a great guide to the people he explains as the "disempowered" or the ones who have not been fully encompassed by this flattened world he describes. His book also gives detail on global interactions with politics, economies and a little mixture of religion with a twist of future insight in the ending chapters. This insight can be interesting at times but for most readers it's not going to be new material.
The book is often preachy, I don't believe everyone in the world wants the "american dream" and will step in the global playing field to get it. I do find his thoughts on maintaining culture and values in the flat world intriguing and a necessity for all.
The book is mostly a promotion for capitalism which can skew the facts that are presented. If you're looking for a good book to read but with an insightful and open mind this one would be a good read.