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Book Description
Pulitzer prize-winning, globally bestselling author charts America's fall from power and influence - and assesses its paths ahead
Product Description
America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In What's Wrong with America?, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what needs to be done now to rediscover America's power and prowess. They explain how the end of the cold war blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously. They show how America's history, when properly understood, provides the key to coping successfully and explain how the paralysis of the US political system and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible to carry out the policies the country needs. What's Wrong with America? is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"That Used to Be Us" delves deeply into the major problems confronting America. The book is well-written and uses a journalistic style similar to other books by Friedman: it includes a lot of anecdotes and quotations. The book starts by comparing a six-month project to fix two small escalators at a New Jersey train station with an eight-month project in China that resulted in the construction of a massive and ornate convention center. That comparison underlies the book's title -- the idea that the U.S. no longer leads the world in its ability to innovate and to efficiently create new things and ideas.
The book is divided into parts that focus on the major challenges we face: (1) Educating our workforce in an age where globalization and information technology have merged into a force that is disrupting job markets. (2) Overcoming the "War on Math," which has led us to recklessly cut taxes and ignore the impact of deficits and the growing dept burden, and the "War on Physics" which has led to rampant denial of the realities of climate change science and energy policy. (3) Political failure, driven by gridlock and the overwhelming influence of money in politics, and our failure invest in basic scientific research, critical infrastructure and to implement and maintain rational regulation of markets.
The part of the book that will perhaps be of particular interest to many readers is the discussion of how technology and globalization are impacting jobs and careers. The job market has been "polarized" so that routine, middle skill jobs have been eliminated, leaving only high skill jobs requiring lots of education and lots lower wage jobs that so far cannot be automated or offshored. There is a good discussion of the issues, again with lots of examples, but, as someone who works in developing these technologies, I think the authors actually underestimate the future impact here. They do not focus on the fact that information technology is accelerating and that the capability of computers and robots is going to improve dramatically over the next decade -- almost certainly threatening many jobs that we now think are safe.
For a much more in depth look on the future impact of technology on the job market and economy, I would recommend reading this book: The Lights in the Tunnel.
"That Used to be Us" is a very important book that will hopefully initiate a much wider and much more honest discussion about the challenges we face. To be sure, not everyone will agree with some of the solutions advocated (for example, increased immigration for skilled workers and a viable third party presidential candidate to deliver a shock to the political system) but the discussion of the major issues and tradeoffs we face is very well done and illuminating.
The book is divided into parts that focus on the major challenges we face: (1) Educating our workforce in an age where globalization and information technology have merged into a force that is disrupting job markets. (2) Overcoming the "War on Math," which has led us to recklessly cut taxes and ignore the impact of deficits and the growing dept burden, and the "War on Physics" which has led to rampant denial of the realities of climate change science and energy policy. (3) Political failure, driven by gridlock and the overwhelming influence of money in politics, and our failure invest in basic scientific research, critical infrastructure and to implement and maintain rational regulation of markets.
The part of the book that will perhaps be of particular interest to many readers is the discussion of how technology and globalization are impacting jobs and careers. The job market has been "polarized" so that routine, middle skill jobs have been eliminated, leaving only high skill jobs requiring lots of education and lots lower wage jobs that so far cannot be automated or offshored. There is a good discussion of the issues, again with lots of examples, but, as someone who works in developing these technologies, I think the authors actually underestimate the future impact here. They do not focus on the fact that information technology is accelerating and that the capability of computers and robots is going to improve dramatically over the next decade -- almost certainly threatening many jobs that we now think are safe.
For a much more in depth look on the future impact of technology on the job market and economy, I would recommend reading this book: The Lights in the Tunnel.
"That Used to be Us" is a very important book that will hopefully initiate a much wider and much more honest discussion about the challenges we face. To be sure, not everyone will agree with some of the solutions advocated (for example, increased immigration for skilled workers and a viable third party presidential candidate to deliver a shock to the political system) but the discussion of the major issues and tradeoffs we face is very well done and illuminating.
Format:Hardcover
Friedman draws a realistic picture of the current situation for US and apparently problems (budget deficit, education, failing infrastructure, not addressing climate issues etc.) mentioned in his previous books got much worse and this book is a call to arms for US as the point of no return is coming closer. Although I struggled finding anything in the book that was not mentioned in Friedman's previous two books "Flat World" and "Hot Flat and Crowded", it is a good read with some good remarks regarding the evolution of jobs after the world getting flatter and the kind of education that can create such jobs.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Thank you Thomas L. Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum. The book should be mandatory reading for all European politicians and gorvernment leaders and other opinin builders. The points certainly hit the nail on the haed. Let's get snmrter, work harder for the common good and stop be so single minded.
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