Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
"God Bless America", 9 Oct 2006
A member of the U.S. Congess donated a photograph to a local shop in Cape Town. He wrote across the bottom: "God bless America." Little did he understand what these words would mean in Cape Town: "America? Should God not bless the world?" The photograph would seem an appropriate metaphor for this book. The idea for the book was born when author Tom Friedman, a celebrated journalist, investigated outsourcing to India -- proof that "intellectual capital" may be delivered "from anywhere". As a result, he considered that "the global competitive playing field was being leveled" -- and decided to pursue the trend.
Is the world really flat (or flattening)? Is it flattening competitively, as Friedman suggests? Early on in the book, Friedman alluded to the dark side of such "flattening". He wrote: "But contemplating the flat world also filled me with dread . . ." My own first thoughts were: "Perhaps he thinks of the avarice of the West, or the deceitfulness and destruction of empire?" Yet he was thinking exclusively of "Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks". This seemed bound to be a one-dimensional book. Did his attitude change as he developed his theme? Essentially, no. Some four hundred pages later, his main concern was "a fundamental interest in keeping the American dream alive".
Friedman considers that there have been "ten forces that flattened the world". #1. The "balance of power across the world" has tipped towards democracy. #2. "The computer and its connectivity [has become] inherently more useful for millions of people". #3. Connectivity has enabled "work flow" to be distributed worldwide. These flatteners, in turn, have empowered "new forms of collaboration", which represent Flatteners #4 to #9. Finally, Flattener #10 serves to amplify "all the other flatteners": the fast advancing digital revolution.
Friedman "always believed in free trade". Should he now? In Bangalore, he looked across "these Indian Zippies", and considered: "Oh, my God, there are so many of them." His first thought: he would not want "any American" to suffer. However, "the way to succeed is not by stopping the railroad line from connecting you, but by upgrading your skills and making the investment[s]". So the advantage comes down to skills and investments. I wondered whether Friedman missed a page in Economics 101, titled "Terms of Trade". He might have spotted the New International Economic Order (NIEO), and how industrialised countries, led by the U.S., opposed much of the agenda, tipping the world scales in their favour.
This book would seem to represent a sobering example of the propaganda of empire -- not to speak of how the deception of empire swallows those who indwell it. Not only is this a book by a celebrated journalist. He won the approval of the Pulitzer Prize committee three times -- which would represent, presumably, the opinions of a large swathe of the U.S.A. I had suspected that such thinking might exist in the U.S.A. This book provides disturbing insight.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Very disappointing, 1 May 2006
I had heard quite a bit of good about this book and its author, but I was disappointed.
The overall message I tend to agree with, but - boy! - does he flog the idea! The examples are often pertinent and his arguments persuasive (US tax forms completed in India?) but the book suffers from the author's verbosity.
One or two examples would be fine, but any more than that becomes overkill. Arguments tend to be made in five different forms, and if a sixth can be made too, then the author goes for it.
It started well but then got difficult. I reached half-way and called it a day.
A pity - I'd have finished the book had Thomas Friedman or his editor cut out the overkill. A half or less would have been fine.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
A More Rounded View, 1 Aug 2006
Other Amazon readers' reviews put me right off this book (all over in 10 pages etc). But my boss asked me to read it, so I persevered. I'm glad I did. Despite the 569 pages (not including anything so outmoded as a bibliography), and despite the many and often very lengthy examples and case-studies, not to mention the long quotes from other writers, there are important messages in this book. It's a good speed-read, if you get my drift. I recommend it on that basis.
Freidman makes a bold claim. Around 2000 a triple convergeance occurred which created a new historical era. Ten flatteners (i.e. changes) created a new, flatter, global playing field. Businesses and individuals (especially would-be zippies from India, China and the former Soviet Union) began to move from vertical to horizontal ways of creating value (i.e. doing business). People suddenly gained access to the flat world platform. Walls, ceiling and floors blew away. Out went command and control. In came connect and collaborate. Noone knows anymore who is exploiting who. Our jobs are being digitalized, automated and outsourced. To survive as a new untouchable middler you'd better become a great orchestrator, synthesizer, explainer, leverager, adapter, or a passionate personaliser. Failing that, just be brilliant, like Madonna or a cancer specialist. Failing that, just be well anchored, like a dustman.
Ok, I parody rather than paraphrase. Readable it always isn't. But that's got most of the bad stuff out of the way. Not all the quotes are bad: "It is a difference of degree so great - of low-cost interconnectivity, of individual empowerment, of global newworks for collaboration - that it is a difference in kind." This it least a bold and stimulating claim which is worthy of examination.
Freidman's central case is that in the first great age of globalisation, it was countries/ governments who first began to establish global collaborative links. Then it was companies. Now it's individuals. To put it another way, we've gone from hunting, to agriculture, to manufacturing industry, to services, to services delivered globally. To put it really badly, in a phrase that irritatingly won't leave my head, the Berlin Wall has become the Berlin Mall.
But aside from the central thesis there are some illuminating passages. Friedman gave me a lot of insight into terrorists. Typically, they are young, male, well-educ | |
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