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Thomas L. Friedman, "The World is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century"

A New Edition Of The Phenomenal 1 Bestseller

"One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way, and Mr. Friedman certainly succeeds in that goal," the Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in The New York Times reviewing The World Is Flat in 2005. In this new edition, Thomas L. Friedman includes fresh stories and insights to help us understand the flattening of the world. Weaving new information into his overall thesis, and answering the questions he has been most frequently asked by parents across the country, this third edition also includes two new chapters—on how to be a political activist and social entrepreneur in a flat world; and on the more troubling question of how to manage our reputations and privacy in a world where we are all becoming publishers and public figures.

The World Is Flat 3.0 is an essential update on globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks—environmental, social, and political, powerfully illuminated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

Amazon.com Review

Updated Edition: Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim in The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists—the optimistic ones at least—are inevitably prey to.

What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments—when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East—is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete—and win—not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.)

New York Times columns know well, and he holds to a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. A year later, one can sense his rising impatience that our popular culture, and our political leaders, are not helping us keep pace.

From Publishers Weekly

Before 9/11, New York Times columnist Friedman was best known as the author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, one of the major popular accounts of globalization and its discontents. Having devoted most of the last four years of his column to the latter as embodied by the Middle East, Friedman picks up where he left off, saving al-Qaeda et al. for the close. For Friedman, cheap, ubiquitous telecommunications have finally obliterated all impediments to international competition, and the dawning "flat world" is a jungle pitting "lions" and "gazelles," where "economic stability is not going to be a feature" and "the weak will fall farther behind." Rugged, adaptable entrepreneurs, by contrast, will be empowered. The service sector (telemarketing, accounting, computer programming, engineering and scientific research, etc.), will be further outsourced to the English-spoken abroad; manufacturing, meanwhile, will continue to be off-shored to China. As anyone who reads his column knows, Friedman agrees with the transnational business executives who are his main sources that these developments are desirable and unstoppable, and that American workers should be preparing to "create value through leadership" and "sell personality." This is all familiar stuff by now, but the last 100 pages on the economic and political roots of global Islamism are filled with the kind of close reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by. Add in Friedman's winning first-person interjections and masterful use of strategic wonksterisms, and this book should end up on the front seats of quite a few Lexuses and SUVs of all stripes.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Friedman, nominally a liberal, has historically taken the middle path and supported laissez-faire capitalism, globalization, and the power of institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Ever optimistic about globalization, he pleases its proponents and disappoints its detractors in The World Is Flat. There’s no doubt that Friedman asks timely questions, even if he sometimes shirks definitive answers. Although he acknowledges terrorism’s global weight, he identifies an even more potent force shaping global economics and politics: the "triple convergence—of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes... for horizontal collaboration," particularly in China and India. Friedman’s story comes alive as we meet the movers and shakers of Globalization 3.0, eavesdrop on Friedman’s interviews, and witness collaborations in progress. Friedman’s personal journey, if slightly padded, makes for entertaining and accessible reading. Yet critics, even those who support globalization, differed on Friedman’s thesis; India, for example, has not yet become the global superpower he describes; many scholars still describe the "flat world" as a nicer name for "cheap labor." Friedman also less effectively analyzes the effects of Globalization 3.0 than its players, and embraces technological determinism at the expense of thoroughly considering major political factors (like terrorist networks, which he’s previously compared to World War III). No matter your stance on the benefits or pitfalls of globalization, The World Is Flat is an important, thought-provoking book—even if Friedman’s answer to unresolved issues is, "Sort that out."

Contents

& 8220;Introduction to the Paperback Edition

How the World Became Flat

1 While I Was Sleeping

"The Monitor Is Burning?"

Flatburgers and Fries

2 The Ten Forces That Flattened the World

Flattener 1 – 11/9/89 The New Age of Creativity: When the Walls Came Down and the Windows Went Up

Flattener 2 – 8/9/95 The New Age of Connectivity: When the Web Went Around and Netscape Went Public

Flattener 3 – Workflow Software

Genesis: The Flat-World Platform Emerges

Flattener 4 – Uploading: Harnessing the Power of Communities

Flattener 5 – Outsourcing: Y2K

Flattener 6 – Offshoring: Running with Gazelles, Eating with Lions

Flattener 7 – Supply-Chaining: Eating Sushi in Arkansas

Flattener 8 – Insourcing: What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts Are Really Doing

Flattener 9 – In-Forming: Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search

Flattener 10 – The Steroids: Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual

3 The Triple Convergence

Convergence I

Convergence II

Convergence III

How Do You Say "Zippie" in Chinese

From Russia with Love

The Other Triple Convergence

4 The Great Sorting Out

India Versus Indiana: Who Is Exploiting Whom?

Where Do Companies Stop and Start?

From Command and Control to Collaborate and Connect

Multiple Identity Disorder

Who Owns What?

Death of the Salesmen

America and the Flat World

5 America and Free Trade: Is Ricardo Still left?

6 The Untouchables: Finding the New Middle

The New Middle

The New Middlers

7 The left Stuff: Tubas and Test Tubes

Which Class Do I Take to Learn How to Learn?

Navigation

CQ + PQ > IQ

Stressing Liberal Arts

left Brain

Tubas and Test Tubes

The left Country

8 The Quiet Crisis

Dirty Little Secret 1: The Numbers Gap

Dirty Little Secret 2: The Education Gap at the Top

Dirty Little Secret 3: The Ambition Gap

Dirty Little Secret 4: The Education Gap at the Bottom

Dirty Little Secret 5: The Funding Gap

Dirty Little Secret 6: The Infrastructure Gap

The Bottom Line

9 This Is Not a Test

Leadership

Muscles

Good Fat: Cushions Worth Keeping

Parenting

Developing Countries and the Flat World

10 The Virgin of Guadalupe

Introspection

I Can Get It for You Wholesale

I Can Only Get It for You Retail

Follow the Leapin' Leprechauns

Culture Matters: Glocalization

The Intangible Things

Many Speeds, One Direction

Companies and the Flat World

11 How Companies Cope

Rule 1: When the world is flat, whatever can be done will be done

Rule 2: Because we are in a world where whatever can be done will be done, the most important competition today is between you and your own imagination

Rule 3: And the small shall act big...

Rule 4: And the big shall act small...

Rule 5: The best companies are the best collaborators

Rule 6: In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients

Rule 7: The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink

Rule 8: HOW you do things as a company matters more today than ever

Rule 9: When the world goes flat—and you are feeling flattened—reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself.

You and the Flat World

12 Globalization of the Local: The Cultural Revolution Is About to Begin

13 If It's Not Happening, It's Because You're Not Doing It

14 What Happens When We All Have Dog's Hearing?

Geopolitics and the Flat World

15 The Unflat World: No Guns or Cell Phones Allowed

Too Sick

Too Disempowered

Too Frustrated

Too Many Toyotas

16 The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention: Old-Time Versus Just-In-Time

Infosys Versus Al-Qaeda

Too Personally Insecure

Conclusion: Imagination

17 11/9 Versus 9/11

eBay

India

The Curse of Oil

Just One Good Example

From Untouchables to Untouchables

Acknowledgments

Index& 8221;

Tags: Globalization, Economics, WorldPolitics

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See Also:

Jasper Becker, "Dragon Rising: An Inside Look At China Today"

Thomas L. Friedman, "From Beirut to Jerusalem"

Thomas L. Friedman, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America"

Ian Bremmer, "The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall"

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, "Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years"

Paul Johnson, "Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (Revised Edition)"

J. M. Roberts, "The New History of the World, 4e"

Tony Judt, "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945"

Daniel Yergin, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power"

Jonathan D. Spence, "The Search for Modern China"

Susan Faludi, "The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America"

J. M. Roberts, "Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000"

David S. Landes, "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor"

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