A review by jenmcmaynes
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

4.0

Interesting. I learned a lot about globalization, something I had not given a lot of thought to. I especially liked the '10 flatteners' he describes at the beginning. This is definitely a pro-business, pro-industry look at the world, and I didn't always agree with everything he said, but it did give me a lot to think about. I couldn't help thinking, though, that this book really showed its age (it was published in 2004) in three areas: 1) technology has changed so much in the last decade, that the 'high tech' examples given were no longer applicable, 2) Friedman comes awfully close to equating business prosperity with the average America's prosperity; given the public discourse on this the last few years, it felt almost like a time capsule, 3) towards the end, while discussing things that could "unflatten" the world, much of the discussion revolves around the Al-Qaeda. Which is probably 100% accurate, but again, sorta brought back that early 2000s hysteria and paranoia.

Despite showing its age a bit, there are still lessons to be learned in this book. Glad I read it.