Wow, this book was a long, hard slog. While I am trying to listen to this book thinking about how it would have been received in the mid-90's, it is so dated at this point that is is very difficult to suspend disbelief. Talking about globalization pre-9/11, pre-Bush era, we are almost talking about a completely different view-point. I won't say completely different world, just a different American view.

Listening to Friedman read it may have been the hardest part, he reads as someone who is entirely convinced of the rightness of his positions. Certainly he was prescient about many things due to globalization. Some of them can be dismissed somewhat because they seem self-evident now (global straitjacket, anyone?). Yet, the conversations about Bin Laden, the 100% feeling that America is on the right track? Well....many of those things are no longer true and weren't true at the time.

Definitely a must read about globalization, the global straitjacket, and information arbitrage for the background, but kudos to anyone who can get it through it.

A simple and interesting read. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman is fond of using simple metaphors for large concepts. The Lexus symbolizes technology, commerce, and globalization while the Olive Tree symbolizes tradition. He discusses the relationship and tension between the two.

Friedman takes a pretty positive view of globalization, if for no other reason than its inevitability. He claims that trying to stop globalization is like trying to "stop the sun from rising." He asserts that it would be more beneficial to work within the system to protect workers' rights than resorting to the type of property destruction that occurred in Seattle during the WTO protests.

Although it's been around 8 years since I've read the book, a few of his ideas stick with me. One idea that sticks with me is that of the superempowered individual. Friedman says that the accessibility of technology has empowered individuals like never before. He gives as a positive example a woman who started an e-mail campaign to raise awareness and protest a corporation's (the Gap, if I remember correctly) use of sweatshop labor. The campaign successfully shamed the company into changing its ways. The negative example he gives as a superempowered individual is Osama bin Laden. Given the fact that in 1999 when Friedman wrote the book, bin Laden had already issued his fatwa against the US, Friedman's observation isn't exactly prescient but is nevertheless an astute observation.

This book does incredibly well in explaining the complicated topic of globalization. It's very readable but is not dumbed-down in any manner. Mr. Friedman tries hard to be objective with his views of the world. Although on some chapters, you can tell that he belongs to the optimistic group of the globalization debate. Whether or not you agree with his perspective, it still is worthwhile to read to see if his pronouncements will at least challenge your own position.

A bit long and Friedman is sporadically objectionable and obnoxious(ly cheesy) but still super helpful and educational

Amerikan karar vericilerinin tipik bir örneği bu yazar. Üstten bakan, sığ teoriler kötü örnekler.

"The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is a book written by Thomas L. Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. First published in 1999, the book explores the complex interplay between globalization and the enduring forces of culture, tradition, and identity in the modern world.

The title of the book symbolizes the dual forces that Friedman believes shape our world. "The Lexus" represents globalization, technological advancement, and the drive for economic prosperity, while "The Olive Tree" symbolizes the deep-seated human need for cultural, historical, and social roots, as well as the desire for identity and stability.

Interesting read after almost 20 years

This is more important than just a book. This is a diagnosis of civilizational collapse!

Thomas Friedman has about eight pulitzers. It is serious. It is horribly embarrassing. This man didn't just embarrass himself with every word he wrote. He embarrassed a nation. He embarrassed hundreds of millions of Americans, even the unborn who must venture from their mother's wombs into this culture of drooling nincompoops and utterly debased standards.

Thomas Friedman is like a pimply retard who somehow, without training, stole a single engine plane. Then he flew that plane, improbably, to a great altitude, sky writing as he went the word "nincompoop" in big pillowy letters across the American Sky.

And it hung their in the wind so alluringly that they gave him a pulitzer.

And then he sky-wrote the word "halfwit" for another pulitzer. and so on.

Thomas F's work has a profound geopolitical importance In the following sense: his work actually supersedes and obviates ALL cultural debate. Because it little matters what is decided in a culture where such a donkey is a respected essayist and commentator. He presumably has millions of readers, and it simply doesn't matter what becomes of these people.

Do you remember "Being There", the movie in which Peter Sellers becomes president simply by making a series of inane remarks?

Well Friedman is the Chauncey Gardener of political commentary.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman.
3/5 rating.
Book #131 of 2019. Read November 21, 2019.

This book really strained my rating system. Usually I have 3/5 mean that it wasn't a waste of MY time, so I rated it as such; but I gotta be honest I figure it would really be a waste of most people's time to read this book.

Thomas talks throughout this book about globalization: exactly what it is, it's unstoppable force, and why it will be such a powerful good for people around the world. He specifically goes into a deep-dive on what the people who are tied so deeply into their heritage and history (their olive trees) will need to do to succeed in such an inter-connected world.

This book was written in 1999 and 2000, so it is interesting to see how spot-on Thomas was to how the world would change and what importance being a part of the "Electronic Herd" is for people, businesses, and countries.

All of this being said, it was almost painful getting through large portions of this book because of how long it was: 475 pages! If it had been about 100-150 pages, it probably would have been much better, but as it was it kind of just pounded home his points in way too many different examples and long explanations.

As I said, it wasn't a waste of my time, but unless you are a complete nerd like me and REALLY interested in globalization and economics, you can probably happily skip this book!

Quotes:
"One afternoon, I was sitting at my desk, scrolling through the news wires on my computer, when I noticed two items move on Reuters, one right after the other:
Dollar Ends Higher on Optimism over Trade Talks
New York (Reuters) - The dollar finished higher against most leading currencies Friday as optimism grew that Washington and Tokyo would reach a trade agreement.
Blue Chip Stocks End Lower on Uncertainty over Trade Talks
New York (Reuters) - Blue chip stocks closed lower Friday amid uncertainty over U.S.-Japan trade talks ahead of a midnight deadline for possible sanctions."
"[A] country must either adopt, or be seen as moving toward, the following golden: making the private sector the primary engine of its economic growth, maintaining a low rate of inflation and price stability, shrinking the size of its state bureaucracy, maintaining as close to a balanced budget as possible, if not a surplus, eliminating and lowering tariffs on imported goods, removing restrictions on foreign investment, getting rid of quotas and domestic monopolies, increasing exports, privatizing state-owned industries and utilities, deregulating capital markets, making its currency convertible, opening its industries, stocks and bond markets to direct foreign ownership and investment, deregulating its economy to promote as much domestic competition as possible, eliminating government corruption, subsidies and kickbacks as possible, opening its banking and telecommunications systems to private ownership and competition and allowing its citizens to choose from an array of competing pension options and foreign-run pension and mutual funds."
"Rick and Marion, welcome to the Electronic Herd. I am glad they did well, but the fact is this proliferation of investment instruments has lulled a lot of Rick and Marions into markets they have no business being in. I cannot prove this, but I would guess that never before in history have more people invested more money in more places that they cannot find on the map."
"Anwar told me that as Mahathir kept accusing the Jews, Soros and other conspirators of deliberately driving down the Malaysian currency, Anwar and some of his colleagues finally went to Mahathir with a chart and said to him something like the following: 'Look, you said this about Soros on Monday, and the Malaysian ringgit fell to here. You said this about the Jews on Tuesday, and the ringgit fell to here. You said this about global investors on Wednesday, and the ringgit fell to here. SHUT UP!'"
"No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's."
"(Globalization does not end geopolitics.)(ital)"
"So let me amend the Golden Arches Theory in light of Kosovo and what are sure to be future Kosovos. I would restate it as follows: People in McDonald's countries don't like to fight wars anymore, they prefer to wait in line for burgers - (and those leaders or countries which ignore that fact will pay a much, much higher price than they think.)"
"If you cut the forests, you can grow them back, but you lose the biodiversity - the plants, the animals. I'm worried that in a decade, we'll all be environmentally aware, but there'll be nothing left to defend."
"Keeping up with the Joneses' has shifted from striving to match the consumption of a next-door neighbor to pursuing the lifestyles of the rich and famous depicted in movies and television shows."
"And as I thought about all this on the tarmac of Kigali Airport, I said to myself, 'Well, my freshmen Republican friends, come to Africa - it's a freshmen Republican's paradise.' Yes sir, nobody in Liberia pays taxes. There's no gun control in Angola. There's no welfare as we know it in Burundi and no big government to interfere in the market in Rwanda."
"This view that Washington is there enemy, and that any tax dollar paid there is a tax dollar wasted, is grotesque."
"A healthy global society is one that can balance the Lexus and the olive tree all the time, and there is no better model for this on earth today than America. And that's why I believe so strongly that for globalization to be sustainable America must be at its best - today, tomorrow, all the time. It not only can be, it must be, a beacon for the whole world. Let us not squander this precious legacy."

تبجّح مقرف بفضائل العولمة..

أنهيت الكتاب اليوم، والعولمة والحداثة قتلت في قصفٍ واحد 400 بريء لاجئ في مخيّم جباليا في قطاع غزّة..

لكي لا ننسى !!

ربيع الآخر 1445

The best book that I’ve ever read so far. If it wasn’t for him I don’t think I would ever read on the topic about globalisation, economic...the world. I’m so hopeless ignorant on this type of topic. But I read this book as if I was reading Murakami, so engrossed.

3.5 Stars

A decent book. Gave me a good understanding of what globalization is and how it works, its pros and cons, what we have to do to make it sustainable, America's and every other country's role being played by, and the historical forces that have led to it. Very good analogies, examples, anecdotes, by which complex ideas have been explained.

Personally, I have had been an anti-globalist for a while. But this book did bring about an understanding about it's hows and whys connecting it with the 19th and 20th century histories, thus (almost) ending my qualms related to it. However, this period of globalization, to me seems to be a period of huge transitioning to a one-world order, and we as a society need to consciously progress towards a better or a progressive alternative to where we are now.

What I did not like about the author saying was, that he thinks Globalization is the only way ahead. Which was a bit of a bummer, wherein he seems to have been limited by his thoughts that have come from resources and observations during his journalistic life. The book is now however more than fifteen years old, and things certainly have changed, but not much when it comes to this particular topic. With that said, the book also comes along historically at times, and was also a good-read alongside Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.