"The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman . This book is about how the computer world is emerging and what causes make people's to communicate in flat monitor and how they connected before and after twenty-first century. The author explained with detail history of how the round world is turned into flat world . some of the aspects for flatter world is outsourcing, offshoring, windows pc, netscape internet, workflow software,e.t.c. I liked this book , I recommend this book to those who interested to know about computer rise and its significance .

I consider myself a bit of a tech-nerd. I love any new technology that is designed to enhance my life. I can't imagine life before my cell phone, my iPod, and my mac. I love flat-panel monitors, digital cameras and satellite radio. As such I considered myself pretty up on the latest technological advances. After reading this book, I realized that not only is technology affecting my life more than I was aware, but it is also changing the way the whole world interacts. This book explains (in laymens terms I could understand) that technology is changing the world on an almost daily basis and only the nations that are able to keep up will be able to compete in the new economy. This book is entertaining AND enlightening in a way that I was completely engrossed from the first chapter. Thomas Friedman's writng style is intelligent yet non-condescending. I recommend this to anyone whether you're a techno-geek or if you're just curious about how UPS works or even if you're wondering who the heck you're speaking with when you call "Tech Support". This book should almost be required reading.

P.S. I'm new to goodreads so i will have plenty more reviews to come. This is just one of my recent favorites!

I made it through "A History of God" and "Absalom, Absalom!" but I could not make myself finish this book. I gave it six weeks and 350 pages, but in the end I couldn't take any more.

Friedman's writing is at times brilliant: he is a master synthesizer, taking complicated economic, political, technological, and social phenomena and artfully explaining the connections between them all and what that means for the future of our world. I had to give this book three stars because I did learn a great deal. Though I can't speak for the second half of the book, he does an excellent job of telling the stories of Wal-Mart, of outsourcing in India, of China's rise, and so on. Because I work in the administrative side of higher education, I was especially appreciative of his perspective on the growing global competitiveness in education and the American educational failures that are only just beginning to show their effects. He has a real talent for taking all these stories out of their silos and blending them together to paint an exhaustingly comprehensive picture of globalization.

Be warned: Friedman very obviously knows he's a talented writer and decides that gives him license to write a 600 plus page book that could have been 350. He inserts hundreds of personal anecdotes that quickly wore on my patience, especially the dozen or so where he feels the need to remind us repeatedly that his daughter Orly went to Yale (the fact that I remember her name tells you how many times it was mentioned). He also delights in cheesy, italicized repetitions of lines from his many interviews as well as painfully corny metaphors.

I realize I've spent more of this review on process rather than product, but that's what is a real shame about this book. In theory, I think this is a must-read. In practice, I commend anyone who makes it all the way through. The all-important content suffers too much from Friedman's often irritating and always lengthy prose.

tThe problem with writing about globalization “3.0” is that we are currently in the midst of it. In a matter of years, even months, a book about the future becomes outdated. Unfortunately, that is what I found with The World Is Flat. Even the “Updated and Expanded edition”, published in 2006 or 2007, is no longer up to date. While I strongly appreciate a lot of what Thomas L. Friedman writes about, it is in many ways a blip in history. The internet has progressed to a point beyond even his initial experience with Wikipedia, blogs, and Google.
For example, I finished The World Is Flat and got on my computer. Within five minutes, I visited Facebook, Pinterest, Gmail, then Goodreads. All those websites or services were either in their very beginning, or uncreated, when this book was written. Things have changed, and taken on many interesting and unique roles yet unpictured.
Six years have gone by since this book was published, and already we have moved beyond what he saw. Sure, I look outside and life doesn’t seem to have progressed much since 2006. But in 2006 Facebook hadn’t exploded. The Arab Springs hadn’t happened yet. Microsoft Word 2010 had yet to be released.
I guess my point is, this book was fascinating, but no longer relevant. It shows how we got here, but no longer, I feel, accurately predicts where we are going. Friedman is very optimistic. Honestly, I got bored with the book after a while. When he isn’t ecstatically looking towards the future, he’s warning about the great turmoil about to fall upon the United States if she doesn’t up her math and science scores. That might be the case, but somehow the optimism/Armageddon doesn’t mix well.
I began this book when I decided to become a Rebelutionary. Sadly, it has taken me this long to finish it. And in those years, this wonderful, truly interesting book became outdated. Because while a lot of what he foresaw is happening and continues to happen, history has happened. We’re no longer where we were when this book was written. Even as he refers to his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree as no longer getting it, The World Is Flat no longer gets it. Referring to people like Osama Bin Laden and Steve Jobs were great…when they were alive. But now they are dead. New people have risen up. New social networks have taken hold of politics and government intervention has become a hotly debated topic.
Would I recommend this book? It is not a gut not a gut yes or no at this point. I learned a lot from it, but I also was left feeling bored and dissatisfied. 566 pages is a lot to wade through only to be left with more questions and half-fulfilled premonitions. I say yes for an understanding of how we got where we are. I say no…because I was bored. I recognize a lot of what he is saying. I see it first hand. I experience it first hand. But I have also seen where his starry-eyed enthusasim or grave warnings sugar coat or darken something and make it more confusing.
Two last side comments.
The first is more of a personal critique. He sources Wikipedia. That distracted me a lot. If there is one thing drummed in your head from K-12 it is that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. And he mentions that. He has, in fact, several paragraphs about being cautious with the online encyclopedia. But he is far to enamored with it. Yet another case of things moving forward. If I want an accurate, factual source that I would quote in a book, I’d hit JSTOR. Or ProQuest. Or any maybe even Google Scholar. Not Wikipedia.
Secondly, his view of the future disturbs me. It is very A-type personality oriented. Now, I happen to have that sort of personality. I thrive in the sort of environment he pictures. But not everyone does. If American jobs become entirely specialized and top-oriented, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people. I just hope there is a middle ground that can and will be discovered for more relaxed people who want to have a lifetime job, and who don’t thrive in a constantly changing environment. I guess as the old saying goes, only time will tell.
I’m afraid this review is much more negative than I meant it to sound. It is not that this is a bad book. It is well written and well organized. It is just outdated. Six years is a blip of time compared to eternity, but in a constantly changing and moving society it is eternity. I think it is time for the situation to be re-evaluated, and re-written.

I'm not sure how this book escapes any high school political or economic class. It should a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y be required reading for any high school or college student. Period. It is the best descriptor of the world we live in. Although I'm sure Friedman is politically biased, it's leanings are far more subtle than anything that comes from the media - and far more interesting.

Friedman tells the story of ten things that demonstrate how our world is smaller and flatter. He acknowledges the world we live in, and challenges us to rise to the occasion. This is not an, "America is bad because it's rich" book but one that says, "stop doing what worked 30 years ago, because it's not 30 years ago anymore."

We are faced with the greatest opportunity since the great depression. How will we respond?

A challenging quote (p. 252):

"As you sort out and weigh your multiple identities...you have to decide: Do you prefer the Wal-Mart approach or the Costco approach? This is going to be an important issue in the flat world: Just how flat do you want corporations to be when you factor in all your different identities?"

THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (RELEASE 3.0) BY THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Thomas Friedman is a well known columnist for the New York Times and the person to turn to for answer’s about this country’s economy and where it’s headed. The premiere hardcover edition of The World is Flat hit the bookshelves in April of 2006, and in that time it has gone through a second edition in hardcover, and finally a third edition in both paperback and hardcover. Friedman’s excuse for updating is that the world is constantly changing, necessitating further chapters in his book. One wonders if there may be a “Release 4.0” in the paperback; only time and our ever-changing present will tell. Nevertheless, The World is Flat is a truly unique book, whether it be for a student of economics, or a person looking for answers to why outsourcing is getting so out of control.

Friedman begins with an introduction to how he discovered that the world had become flat; noticing details here and there in his travels around the world, and then putting it all together. He then leads into his ten forces that flattened the world, explaining how they came to be, what effect they had on the “flattening” of the world, and how some are continuing to do so. These include two important dates: 11/9/89, which was when the Berlin Wall came down and eastern Europe and Russia joined the rest of the world once again; and 8/9/95 when Netscape first released its browser to computer owners, allowing them to surf this new thing called the Internet. Friedman hits every important step in the way business has changed in the last three decades: from Wal-Mart’s ingenuity in supply-chaining, leading to the incredible system whereby a product is purchased at a Wal-Mart store sending a message to the supplier which immediately starts making another copy of that product; to software development in its original free form with LINUX; to the light speed development of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and online blogs where everyone has a voice; to the existence of large buildings in places like Bangalore, India, housing thousands of customer service representatives helping American customers thousands of miles away with anything from credit card bills to cellphone technical questions.

With these ten factors serving as a basis for how and why the world has become flattened, Friedman takes the reader on a trip around the world, elucidating exactly why when we call for help now, the chances of getting a person with an accent who’s native language isn’t English are incredibly high. But isn’t this what America is all about? Perhaps not, when the person you are talking to is on the other side of the world, and that this is somehow cheaper and better for the company you are calling that using an American citizen who could be just a few miles away. While Friedman does have some answers, it is clear that America and the world is at a turning point, much like the beginning of the twentieth century when there was the roaring beast of industrialization, and the explosion of the assembly-line system of the Model T Ford. One can certainly expect more from Friedman in the coming years, as new and inconceivable changes happen before our very eyes. For now, The World is Flat is the only guidebook we have, and it does its job to a T.

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Although I had planned to read this book for a while, it took a meeting of a book club to actually get me through it. The main idea (the world in which business operates today is radically different thanks to technology) could have been presented in much less space, but some of the details of how that is so are so interesting, it's almost worth dragging yourself all the way through the book. (I thought Chapter Two would never end.) For example, the section of chapter 2 on Walmart is fascinating. I also appreciated the central chapters on education, and those chapters contain one of my favorite statements: In China Bill Gates is their Brittany Spears while in the USA Britany Spears is our Brittany Spears. Scary if it's true, this book gives its American readers lots to worry about.

This is an interesting book, with some interesting and important points but it seems repetitively too long. It tells of the history of the world in innovation, economics, politics and education since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Since that time many events and innovations have created a "flat world" where we can more easily communicate, collaborate and world together globally. This is exciting and has opened up wonderful opportunities, but is has also created new competition and potential threats.

At the same time technology has improved the way we communicate (internet, blogging, collaborative workflow software, outsourcing, supply chain management, etc.), countries and individuals who have not previously been a part of the same market are now competing with each other in a more free and open world. Particularly interesting were some of the stories about work going to India and China where there are many people willing to work hard.

For the most part I think the thesis of this book was for Americans to be aware of the changes rapidly taking place so that we see the importance of working hard and continuing to learn so that we can still compete in the globally flat world.

My favorite chapter of the book was about education: The Right Stuff--Tubas and Test Tubes (page 308). This chapter focuses on the importance of learning how to learn so that we know how to continue to learn and progress in a quickly changing world. Passion and curiosity may be more important than IQ.

There are a lot of other interesting points he makes about how new technologies and convenience have changed the way we communicate with each other--we don't talk to the people around us as much because we can be always connected to anyone anywhere. Just as many people are using new technologies to collaborate on new and important business and research others are using the same tools to harm other individuals and nations. The world has become flat so quickly that no one really knows how to control or protect people from some of the potential problems.

Interesting thoughts. Good book. We really are all connected! Hopefully we'll prepare and use these opportunities for good!

I bought this book simply because of the title and my wish to view the bigger picture of what the world is going through but as I read the beginning pages my curiosity was stirred and my initial expectation of what the book would be about shaken. It makes a lot of sense, what the book suggests and how it builds shouldering theories on the flatness of the world and you begin to see signs that you ignored but that start to come full circle again. It is scary how economy works now and how services are the "new oil" of countries that we thought would be forever barren but it is also hopeful because it suggests that everyone and every country has an equal chance now of playing the field and scoring high. The competition is still there for sure and the rules of this game are different and we better be aware of the silver lining and the challenges or time will pass us by and we will look back to ourselves as nations and see that we are standing at the end of the world (pun-intended).

To be honest, this is the very first book which is not compulsory textbooks that I've ever finished lol. The book contains a huge amount of knowledge and I really admire the author, Mr. Thomas L. Friedman, for his hard work to write the book. I took me almost years to finish it (so bad I am not a hard-working reader at all but I am trying to change it now) but it's worth my time. The book is about globalization, in which the author tried to convey the message that wherever you come from and whoever you are, you have an equal opportunity to participate in the world trade. It is the very first time I've ever heard about "outsourcing" as well as many other new places, new ideas and new definitions, thanks to the book.

The world has again changed a lot from the day the book was first issued in 2005 but at some point I think it still remains its value until today, especially for those who want to find out more about globalization.

THE WORLD IS FLAT, it cost Rs.500 in India

fact loaded book, so much information compressed into short digestible clips. The information is about the changes which occurred with the advent of Internet, what changes Software developers had to make, what changes Business houses had to face, redesigning their traditional run companies into modern global world companies. The many opportunities provided to multinational companies with the broadband connectivity of INDIA and CHINA and other parts of the world.

This book is a first person narrative, it is like reading a report, there is lot of care taken to give as much background of all the major leading concepts of remodeling of already prevailing business and the new startups,the bust and boom days of internet. Maya Gorman is the assistant who deserves credit to arrange facts from so many diverse sources used to compile this wonderful informative business book. What Thomas L.Friedman did was stitch with his insight all information gathered by his assistant into chapters and sub-headings of cohesive attractive and interesting look at new things in business today. This book converted nicely small stories of so many surviving companies into saleable commercial gripping narrative.

Journalist and book writer is Mr.Friedman, he has keen sense of word flow and good grasp of technical facts and details, he converts supply chain network of Wal-Mart into a very grand story like narrative and grips his readers firmly with his constant words asking us to visualize and think and generate a torrent of ideas in the bargain come flooding to us. I was kept glued till the completion of my reading in 3 days, because the pace do not let up, as many things presented well are quiet readable, specially all parts where the writer is discussing BUSINESS is very running, innovative and forcing us to look at the evolving frontiers of business in the new world. Multinationals, multi-synergies, outsourcing, insourcing, globalization are all watch words of this book presented explicitly well.

Me being a keen chaser of lucre (money)enjoyed reading all of it, it opens up our eyes and mind and generates ideas well, I enjoyed all this, I don’t say this book is a must for all who hold decision making positions in business companies, but this book is a must for everyone who are fascinated with INTERNET and what it is doing today and what potential it can have in itself.

This book will open eyes to new way of thinking and doing things, this book will help in understanding days to come in future business world, it has lot of useful tid-bits, all assembled about top business houses, like Jetblue, HP, Rolls Royce, GM, GE, Microsoft, Walt-Mart, I will not give all the names of people and companies, but I must say this book is very useful TODAY, TOMORROW, DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

I hate sermons, specially when I am paying for them, after all I am paying money to make this book a successful publication, but I concede the sermons were short in this book, they were not lengthy and dragging, its not much sweat lost, but there is a attempt to bring a few topics in this book which are not researched well, rumors are printed as facts, there are some places attempts are to spoon feed readers into accepting the writers point of view. Anyway we have all our own shortcomings, we can ignore it in view general beneficial things this book contains.

Economics of this book is there are more benefits to be derived from it than some loose points. Any work of we feeble humans always has loose ends, the big picture should be always in sight, the English is very nice and crispy, there are flowing sentences running like smooth currents with special care given to explain and use all the latest net worthy terminology. The language is very contemporary and hence interesting to read.

My mention of Maya Gorman is very important, as much work in this book was done in gathering real information and blended well by narrative of Mr.Friedman, there is a immense load of information very useable and real we get from this book, to gather all that information is not a mean task, the profits are large if we learn to use this information constructively.

Now that we have analyzed briefly the usability of this book with its content, lets also see if this book is worthy to be stored in our personal library, I know it is a valuable asset, every library must have this book because it can be used as a reference work for many students who are in search of information. This book is fantastic as a reference material for many days in our future world.

Yo information stitched correctly will take a very useful shape always !!!

Rosy colored glasses perspective of humanity and how technology and globalization trends will progress the human condition. This is a con job that supports the hyperbole and hubris of the powers- that- be. In the last analysis, all this rhetoric and technology exponentially accelerates our path to human extinction by exacerbating climate change, overpopulation, infinite economic growth, exhaustion and destruction of all natural resources; plus, ecocide and its resultant diseases and its extinction of other species - that one day may also include homo sapiens. How can the author miss the most salient threats to human existence in his research and advocate for the misguided benefits of globalization technolgical innovation? In short, this book is more fiction than truth - but I say this with the advantage of hindsight.

There was a time when I thought that The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize were beyond reproach - now I am not so sure - as it is amazingly self-evidence that they dance to the tunes of the military~industrial~consumer~congressional complex. That is not good for democracy- but more importantly the existence of humanity.