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Book by Friedman, Thomas L.

484 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1997
Literary awards
cornelius ryan award, 

This edition

Format
484 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 1999 by Atlantida
ISBN
9789500821940
ASIN
950082194X
Language
Spanish; Castilian

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About the author

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thomas l. friedman

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Thomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and, columnist—the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of six bestselling books, among them From Beirut to Jerusalem and The World Is Flat. In a book review for The Village Voice, Edward Said criticized what he saw as a naive, arrogant, and orientalist account of the Israel–Palestine conflict in Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem.


In January 1995, Friedman took over the New York Times Foreign Affairs column. “It was the job I had always aspired to,” he recalled. “I had loved reading columns and op-ed articles ever since I was in high school, when I used to wait around for the afternoon paper, the Minneapolis Star, to be delivered. It carried Peter Lisagor. He was a favorite columnist of mine. I used to grab the paper from the front step and read it on the living room floor.”

Friedman has been the Times‘s Foreign Affairs columnist since 1995, traveling extensively in an effort to anchor his opinions in reporting on the ground. “I am a big believer in the saying ‘If you don't go, you don't know.' I tried to do two things with the column when I took it over. First was to broaden the definition of foreign affairs and explore the impacts on international relations of finance, globalization, environmentalism, biodiversity, and technology, as well as covering conventional issues like conflict, traditional diplomacy, and arms control. Second, I tried to write in a way that would be accessible to the general reader and bring a broader audience into the foreign policy conversation—beyond the usual State Department policy wonks. It was somewhat controversial at the time. So, I eventually decided to write a book that would explain the framework through which I was looking at the world. It was a framework that basically said if you want to understand the world today, you have to see it as a constant tension between what was very old in shaping international relations (the passions of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, geography, and culture) and what was very new (technology, the Internet, and the globalization of markets and finance). If you try to see the world from just one of those angles, it won't make sense. It is all about the intersection of the two.”

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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38(38%)
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32(32%)
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
anubite
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I really do not understand the appeal of Thomas Friedman. I don’t think his writing is very good, and I think his political commentary is inane. I cannot believe smart people take this man seriously.

My synopsis of standard Friedman socio-economic analysis:

I am a genius able to see developments in the world economic order before anyone else. I went to Southeast Asia, because I am a man of adventure with large expense account from a big newspaper. A South Asian man rowed me in a boat. He had a cell phone. Globalization is curing the ills of the world!

There, now you don’t have to read this stupid book.
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adirsu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This book by Thomas Friedman is about globalization and how it affects us. Basically, Friedman believes that Globalization, in sum total, is good for the world, notwithstanding its negative effects.
Friedman's primary thesis is that the cold war politics conditioned the behavior of nation states till 1990. Now, it is 'Globalization' and its inexorable movement forward that shapes nations and their behavior internally as well as one another. Friedman introduces the term 'the Electronic herd' in explaining his theories. The Electronic Herd has two parts to it - the Short horn and the Long horn. The Short horn refers to currency traders; mutual, pension and hedge funds; insurance companies or bank trading rooms. They are known as short-horn cattle because they move money around the world, often on a very short-term basis. Long-horn cattle represents the large multi-national corporations e.g. General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Intel, Siemens etc, which increasingly invest in or move production to foreign countries. They are known as long-horn cattle because they have to make long term commitments when investing. It is important for nation states to keep the Herd satisfied through transparency, responsible fiscal behavior and legitimate practices as otherwise they will take their money away from you and invest it where these features are represented better. The degrees of freedom for adventurism of nation states are reduced because their economy would be in difficulties if the Herd gives them a bad rating due to irresponsible policies. Friedman cites examples from the South-East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Also, the Herd frowns against war and its dislocating effects. So, Friedman believes that Globalization has been good in reducing violent conflicts around the world. Only countries which do not plug into Globalization have the freedom to amke conflict and reap its consequences. he cites examples of N.Korea, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan etc.
Friedman is not naive. He realizes that Globalization has its bad effects on good things in traditional societies. His Lexua is an euphemism for Globalization and the 'Olive tree' for tradition. He discusses the challenges posed by Globalization to valuable traditions and the importance of old cultures in keeping to them on the face of the onslaught from Globalization. He also devotes many chapters on the unique role the US can play to harness it all.
Overall, the argument is compelling and well-reasoned. People who are deadly opposed to Globalization would trash many of his arguments. But, as one coming from India and living in the US, I can relate to the arguments in the book and find validity in them.
The book is well-written and it is an easy read, just like his other books on the subject. I would recommend the book strongly for one interested in the subject.
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mr_steal_your_ai
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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As a review of what Globalization has done to and for the world in the past twenty years, I listened to this three CD audio as a kind of "refresher" course. Although it is a bit dated of course, I find that the benefit of reaching back in time is to discover how accurately things played out through time.
Was the author a "false prophet", or was he indeed onto something in the way he viewing the trends.
Friedman had it down pretty well as I see it, but now we are all feeling the blow back of Globalization as Nationalism is springing up in movements around the world, including here in the U.S.A.
You can see it in the many marginalized and bitter old white men here in my home state of Pennsylvania. I have spent the past eight months driving through the state, through the towns that the Global economy has been bypassing. These folks thought that some company, some politician, or the government would come to the rescue. No one ever did, and these faded towns sure show it.
There are towns like this across the country, and indeed, around the world.
Donald Trump saw this and tapped into this vibe, even though from his home in Palm Springs, he has nothing in common with these common people.
I see that in some of these previous reviews, there are a few Thomas Friedman haters here.
Chill out folks, Friedman has spent a whole lotta time in some very dangerous places and away from his family reporting from the field and actually speaking to the people on the street.
I first read his book "The World is Flat ", which i would recommend before this one.
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birdboy2000
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This book is so appalling in so many ways that I cannot understand why it is so popular. I had to read it for a class in school (my Costa Rica sustainable development course) and basically everyone in the class agreed that Friedman had a very disturbing view of globalization. He seems to think that globalization benefits everyone in its race to the bottom because it makes goods and services cheaper and better. Guess what buddy? If everyone is getting paid crap they have no money for those goods and services. He spends most of the book defending the practices of some of the American corporations with the worst reputations (like Enron, I'm not kidding!) and name dropping all these "important people" he's met.
Actually the very worst was in the last chapter when he said that the U.S. military exists entirely to protect U.S. economic interests abroad, and that's what it should do! Also, in a weird kind of unrelated section he talks about how the internet is godless and we have to "bring God to the internet." What the f___?
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nyanzure
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Um livro que nos mostra com uma linguagem simples e acessível, o advento da globalização, dos mercados livres, da internet, das comunicações e o seu impacto nas vidas de todos nós.
Thomas L. Friedman através da sua experiência como jornalista dá-nos a ver toda uma década de mudança, os anos 90 do século passado e aborda uma enormidade de temas que fazem parte do nosso dia a dia, desde o boom do mercado livre, com todas as suas implicações socio-económicas, o grande desenvolvimento e velocidade nas comunicações, o avanço informático, os problemas ecológicos e as grandes crises que abalaram os anos 90.
Apesar deste livro ter sido escrito há 10 anos atrás continua bastante actual, os temas que ele aborda continuam a dominar a nossa actualidade. Uma das coisas que este livro me fez perceber um pouco melhor foi a crise que atravessamos nos dias de hoje mas mais que a crise são as razões da mesma acontecer.
Este livro deve de ser lido por toda gente que se interessa pelo que se passa nos dias de hoje no nosso mundo.
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Feight_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Read this book nearly 30 years after its first release. It's an interesting book showing us what happened back then to build the globalization system as today + showing how geo-political problem can be bad for the world economics. However, there are some points I don't agree totally with author:
- America has their own problems, not only receives all the advantages of globalization. Donald Trump became the President because he promised to bring back the job of American company losing because of glocalization for domestic market. And the government debt reached the highest amount last year.
- China found its own way to become superpower country, so the "American-style-of-globalization" is not the only and ultimate way to become richer.
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Icelord259
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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It’s interesting to read this book almost 20 years after it was first written. It’s still a great explanation of globalization and the pros and cons. It’s amazing how much Mr. Friedman got right in his predictions. It’s interesting to spend some time thinking about international relations, foreign policy, and economics. The only downside to reading it so far after it was written is that the world has changed so much. China was still in its infancy when we wrote this book and its rapid growth clearly wasn’t expected. If you can put up with references to the new internet, palm pilots, blackberries, and the technology of the 2000s this is still a great read.
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Darkmonger
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Great book on globalization, its pros and cons, however I found some parts redundant and very much familiar from his previous writings. Not too much new in this work really, perhaps because I follow his columns regularly.
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