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.

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.

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.

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___?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Did you know that once a country gets a McDonald’s, they’ll never go to war with another country that has a McDonald’s?

Picked up this book in high school after reading a little Gladwell & I couldn’t get past the first 50 pages.

Fast forward 10 years later and in the middle of a globalization kick I picked it up again. Reading this 25 years after it was written was fun to see what Friedman got right & wrong.

It’s one of those books that makes you feel really smart and makes you think you understand the world better after reading. But give credit to where credit is due; Friedman came up with the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention which I think is a very neat & (mostly) true idea.

Also fun reading this during the time I read Confessions of Economic Hitman, Friedman reminds you of what good writing looks like.

Wow this was a long hard read.

I was impressed by how fairly accurate Friedman is in most of his premises, as information is instantly available and modern life just seems it won’t quit increasing its pace.

Friedman is a liberal, I’m a conservative, so it was challenging to read about some things I completely disagree on, but it felt so enriching.
It felt a little like going back in time when we could have good, open and honest conversations and even disagreements.

Definitely a must read on globalization.

Thomas Friedman is a very smart, well-experienced, well-traveled columnist for the NYT. I really respect his insight and his opinions, and this is why I was very disappointed with this book.

Part of this may be because it was written in 1999 (it was only 9 years ago, but this country has really taken a nosedive since then). In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman is constantly giddy about the new globalization system that has come to replace the Cold War system. The "globalization" that he describes is synonymous with capitalism. In my opinion, he avoids using the term capitalist because of the connotations of greed. He extols the virtue of this universal global market system and how it eliminates inefficiencies and raises living standards worldwide.

But, Friedman describes (in my opinion, cherrypicks) those nations that have done well under the globalization system: USA, Western Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Singapore, etc. He even proudly proclaims that all nations can "choose" to go this route and become prosperous as if it were that easy. This proclamation really irked me. He never mentions the myriad of other nations just trying to escape poverty. What does this new system of globalization do for them? When you don't have food or a healthcare system, I am sure you cannot "choose" to join the capitalistic world. I am really uncomfortable with Friedman and capitalists repeating the idea that any nation can become rich, that if they embrace free-market policies, they too can have a level of consumption like developed countries. That's a cruel paradox in itself. How can the globe sustain life if everyone has American levels of consumption?

Friedman also has a very arrogant view of the world in this book. His remarks describing "angry men" sometime sound eerily similar to Bush's claims that Arabs hate us because they hate freedom and democracy.

This book sort of helps one to understand why Friedman was an early supporter of the Iraq war.

I thought Friedman provided a lot of good examples of how the world has come to be globalized. I thought that part of the book (the beginning) was solid.

The book is very readable and it feels like you're listening to an audiotape of Tom Friedman at 2X, but the man is also annoying as heck with all his made-up words and terms, such as globulation to glocalism to the electronic herd. He is also all over the place and the book has weak organization.

Sự chuyển giao giữa chiến tranh thế giới thứ hai, chiến tranh lạnh, hai cực của thế giới và sự chuyển giao từ công nghệ truyền thống sang công nghệ hiện đại.

Giữ lại cây ô liu hay chấp nhận sản xuất chiếc Lexus để có đời sống tân tiến hơn. Cuốn sách là một sự hài hòa về tường thuật lịch sử thế giới, mô tả chiến tranh và tổng hợp nhiều góc nhìn, đánh giá của các chuyên gia về tình hình lúc bấy giờ.