4.5/5 A fat 700 page book with a suspicious-looking title "The World is Flat". Often such books are repetitive, with the central idea behind hammered, often with selected datas and twisted interpretation to fit that one central idea. And often the anecdotes/stories can be stale. Not this one though !
This book by 3-time Pultizer prize winning author Friedman was an absolute joy to read. It is lucid, full of relevant and interesting anecdotes, a number of theories and in-depth explanation of causes and effects of globalisation. It offers a number of insights and a number of viewpoints. I consider myself well-read on a couple of sub-themes he touched and he was spot-on with his facts and insights.
Amazing read. A great book to end the year with ! The 0.5 rating has been deducted as it was slightly repetitive while talking of how America should deal with globalisation.

It is quite true in his explanation that the world is increasingly smaller than it has ever been due to the development of the Internet and the digital world. I like his style of writing though sometimes it is not really concise. But other than that, this book is easy to follow.

In my perspective, the world could never be entirely flat or even if it could be flat, this scenario could not happen during this century. In fact, war, poverty, political view or even culture clash plays a big role against this process of flattening. As I moved along these pages, the only thing I could notice is that Friedman continually tried to describe the process of flattening but he seemed to ignore that there could be a real force that could resist to this change - human. There are many people who are trying to "de-flatten" this world, making each of us, each country tends to be more different and diverse rather than to be so similar and as flat as it could be.

As of December 14,

I started reading this novel by Thomas Friedman sometime last week. My hopes from reading this were to basically gain a coherent understanding of how the ideas of success and business are now becoming more commonplace around the world. The beginning of the book details the founding and establishment of InfoSys, a technology solutions company based in Bangalore, India. One of the founders tells Friedman about his experiences and how he came from, essentially, nothing to create this growing tech empire. So far, I would imagine it to be a difficult read for those uninterested in the subject, but I rather enjoy reading such books. So far so good.


As of February 8,

In this portion of the book, Friedman narrates different eras of globalization which include the Triangle Trade routes in the 16th century and even the Silk Road. Through these examples, he explains the process of information exchange and the effect it has on businesses to perform various duties from remote locations. So far, this book has been very fascinating and provided a new perspective on understanding how the world works. Stay tuned for more!

As of February 11,

This next chapter provided several historical instances of what Friedman believes are the ten influencing factors that led to globalization and world flattening. These include events such as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, outsourcing eras, and the establishment of Netscape. This section is truly interesting as it provides a unique and generally ignored perspective on the effects of these sorts of historical examples. Friedman continues to impress and prove his thesis that the playing field for all on this Earth may be becoming increasingly level. Stay tuned, folks!

As of February 20,

Friedman begins this chapter by acknowledging the fact that these factors listed previously are not the sole reason of the world's flattening. Friedman explains that as each of the factors came together, they had to spread and take root to create the environment rich for flattening. He credits politics and technological advancements, in general, for these results. What I mainly took away from this chapter is the fact that Friedman is able to understand his limitations and add on to his argument with more facts and examples. I feel that gives him more credibility, resulting in a more effective argument. Let's see how he continues.

As of February 26,

Friedman starts this section of the book by exploring foreign students, looking to work in America. He strongly notes that this is one of he first times in history where we see that talent has become more important than geography in determining a person’s opportunity in life. Friedman also discusses how the idea of outsourcing has contributed to this as several companies, such as Boeing Jets, in allowing for more skilled workers in more diverse locations. Through these examples, Friedman demonstrates the need for individuals and businesses to be able to compete in a global marketplace. These chapters are starting to develop a more modern global aspect to his argument; an ingenious strategy to laying out his plans, if I do say so myself.

As of March 14,

This next portion of the novel dives into some ethical situations. Going off his point of outsourcing in the previous section, Friedman discusses with several theorists whether this expansion of both labor and opportunity can lead to exploitation and corruption. He cites the 2003 Indian-Indiana issue to exemplify his contention. In this story, an Indiana company made the decision to outsource its workforce to India because of a need to upgrade their unemployment system, essentially taking work from Americans and giving them to Indians. Additionally, Friedman compares the ethics in terms of how the workforce is treated and viewed in developing, on-the-rise countries. Friedman's consideration for a new, more subjective argument allows for a unique, yet slightly jarring new perspective on the world today. We'll see how it all pans out, I suppose.

As of March 31,

Thanks to the "incentives" from Mr. Herring, I determined to increase the pace at which I read this very informative piece. This next large chunk of the book focused on the idea of globalization of course, but in a collaborative sense. Friedman argues that "the most disruptive force of all" is the act of uploading and sharing information via the internet. He cites several examples of services and companies that have following in this trend and encouraged this global cooperation such as open source development, blogs, wikis, and especially social media. Friedman asserts that these tools are expanding to more developing countries and economies, leading to more shared knowledge in the world today. This section was truly appealing as Friedman discusses tools that we, in a 1st world country, consider omnipresent and, possibly superfluous, but that, in the right manner, can create definite change and resolve conflict in the world today as more and more people are connected.

As of April 16th,

Well over spring break and this past week, I managed to crank out the last 400 or so pages of this book, and instead of reviewing all the chapter I have read, I am simply and briefly going to evaluate the relevance and quality of Friedman's assertion. So throughout the novel, Friedman is asserting the claim that the world's economic "playing field" is leveling, due to many factors such as globalization and technological advancements. This evidence holds very true in our day and age as we do see more and more great minds emerge from several third world countries. Additionally, Friedman cites several examples of tech advancements throughout history (most of which are discussed above) to prove his point. To keep it short, Friedman's argument is essentially rock-solid with abundant proof and brilliant analysis. The only issue I could possibly find is where he strayed off the path of the "debate" and began narrating examples of stories that hardly mattered and were almost seemed to "fluff" the true conditions of certain areas, such as how throughout the novel, he only describes an India that is a technological powerhouse and a rising world power, without addressing its corruption and poverty. Other than that, however, this was a fantastic read that truly provides a new perspective and outlook on our world.
Til next time,


Prakrit Shukla

The first big mistake I made was deciding to buy the 2.0 edition of the book (updated and expanded). Redundancy is one of the book’s signature features so updating and expanding it only compounds the sins of this feature. My second big mistake was deciding to finish reading it after first running aground about half way through and taking a several month sabbatical to read more worthy books. All right I’m being testy. It wasn’t such a big mistake. Friedman is a smart guy but way too full of himself, the book’s title is sufficient evidence of that—The World Is Flat, too cute and not up to the belaboring it gets—and the false (on three fronts) humility of the subtitle. The book isn’t brief and it is not a history, nor is there any humility in the pretend irony of “A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century”. Indeed there is no humility in this book that isn’t a pretence designed to cast the author’s brilliance in finer relief. And the man thinks he is Adam set loose in a new conceptual world where he is entitled to name anything and everything. You can run out of fingers and toes, even if you borrow those of friends and family, counting the times Friedman begins a sentence or phrase with a variation of “something I like to call…” I don’t know in the whole history of publishing if there is a writer who claimed coining so many phrases, the majority of which are as pedestrian as they come. It’s not just “flat world” and the concept of “flattening” or “the coefficient of flatness,” it’s “Globalization 1.0” and it’s 2.0 and 3.0 descendents, it’s “In-forming”, it’s “glocalization,” it’s, oh, why go on. This book had all the makings of an outstanding essay or two or three very good Sunday Times magazine features. It’s got the trends in business, technology, and perhaps culture and politics right. It’s by turns inspiring, scary, and tediously bloated. It is a wearying, self-promotional exercise in over and over re-stating what��s became obvious twelve anecdotes and 34 declarations ago. The best part of the book and, for me, it’s only enduring redeeming value is its bookmark, a Valentine’s Day card, handmade by my fiancée. But I don’t think that came with everyone’s copy.

I found this book amazing to highlight the globalization effect on the economics, companies and industries. It elaborates well how everyone is being competing with anyone in the world regardless of geographical distance between, which gives a red alarm for countries & companies who don't take the benefits of such competing to be competing in the future :)

A work of monolithic proportion. Carefully researched, addressing some of the most pressing issues of the day, this book should be on the night stand of every aspiring CEO.
The author (three times Pulitzer Prize winner) takes the comparative approach to structure and never fails to keep the readers busy with questions of strategic, technological and political importance. (A quick glimpse of the index is enough to give one a head-spin). For example, consider the `triple convergence' factor for building a successful business (have you ever heard about it?) or how about such notions as `outsourcing', `in-sourcing', `global supply chain'. Executives will reap the benefits from the countless examples of successful decision-making strategies implemented at top companies like UPS, Wal-Mart, JetBlu, and Yahoo. Even if you are not a fan of the business genre, you'll find something beneficial in this work. (take a chance for a change). Fully developed, carefully constructed and extremely interesting, this book should be a required reading for all intellectual readers (especially MBA students, business executives and high-rank political figures).

Truth can be a little scary. Friedman has a way of explaining the world as we know it, but more important what we do not understand that we should. A great and though provoking read.

read Lexus first, but this one is just as important, and just as well written

It was one of the best books I read. Although i disagree with some of the content, the book displays history of the past 20 years in a wonderful way. It also reveals the comprehensive meaning, te pros and cons of globalization and is impact on business, politics, individuals, terrorism, .... I learned a lot from this book , it gave me some ideas to implement in my work.

I'll call it the "Book of impressions". As a reporter writes a business book for the geo-political powers governing our era and the one to come, you see more stories than true scientific analysis. It could be good enough for a layman but not for someone looking for deep/real analysis.

Hopefully I will write a full review soon.

کتاب خیلی خوبیه برای کسایی که فهمیدن میتونن از دنیا و عصر حدید پول میشه دراورد اما نمیدونن جطوری
در ضمن کتاب غم انگیزی هست جون نشون میده کشور ما جطور با قرار گرفتن در سمت اشتباه تاریخ ، تا ابد در پرتگاه سفوط کرده
در اخر اینکه هر مهندس کامپیوتری واجبه براش خوندن این
و اینکه شاید بعضی جاهاش اضافه و بیخود و زیاده گویی باشه

After the first 150 pages I said "Too few ideas in so maaany pages..."
Well, I've finally read the whole 650 pages and the book is good, there are more than a few ideas, and almost all very good ones.
Still the book is a little too long for the amount of payload it carries.