Travel Book Logs

The World Is Flat:
A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Thomas L Friedman
Website: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat.com

Its a bit of a let down to write about a book that came out in 2005.   Everybody knows about this book and has somewhere seen a quote from or reference to the book.   Thomas Friedman, was so enthusiastic about the idea he has written what could be called a series.   The World is Flat – Expanded Edition was published in April 2006 and The World is Flat, 3.0 was published in July 2007.

Do a Google search and you will see that Friedman has plenty of fans and critics.  To his fans the books have brought on a new way of looking at globalization.  His critics more or less tend to heckle him on his over simplification of issues or of finding examples to suit his arguments.  Both are true views on the books but really one has to read the books after giving Friedman due recognition for his work and perspective – few people can claim to have had the ring side view of world events as Friedman.  For more on Thomas Friedman click here …

I see in Friedman a smart guy who knows better than to try to be bigger or smarter than the situations he writes about.  The title of the The World is Flat is a play on the old world discovery that the world was indeed round.  Christopher Columbus sought to prove the world was round by heading West instead of East to find India.  Friedman finds himself traveling East to India in the IT era where he sees how globalization has westernized India causing him to coin the term “the world is flat“.  Friedman explains how technology and IT in particular has leveled the field in various fields giving new opportunities in some interesting areas – the BPO industry in India an obvious example.

The book is an interesting read and if you are like me some of the stuff in here is just plain neat.  I was not looking to check if the guy has rigorously researched his topic.  I am quite happy to hear some interesting parallels like in the  outsourcing of Japanese work to Dalian, China were apparently there exists a population of Chinese people with a working knowledge of Japanese.  Interesting!    I think Friedman’s only real gaffe is the lofty sub title to the book series “A Brief History of the Twenty First Century”.  Well we all know its not that.  A much better suited sub title could have referred to the book as a snap shot on the interesting (and optimistic) effects of globalization today.