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The World Is Flat
A Brief History Of The Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. Friedman


5.5

based on 22 reviews
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Official Author Site

The New York Times columnist examines the current state of globalization in a follow-up to The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pages
04/2005
$27.50

ISBN: 0374292884

Nonfiction
Business & Professional
Current Events & Politics

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly

This is all familiar stuff by now, but the last 100 pages on the economic and political roots of global Islamism are filled with the kind of close reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by. [28 Mar 2005, p.68]

Boston Globe Michael Langan

A tantalizing look at the future.

Christian Science Monitor Clayton Jones

No one today chronicles global shifts in simple and practical terms quite like Friedman.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] David Ticoll

The book is longer than necessary; many of the stories are oft-told business press tales. Occasionally, Friedman hyperventilates. His sections on the changes in business are unnecessarily repetitive and redundant; they also broadcast wrong explanations of some key concepts. However, this is an important book. [30 Apr 2005, p.D14]

The Guardian John Kampfner

In the crowded market of globalisation books, this is an entertaining, informative and occasionally annoying addition.

The Independent John Gray

Like Friedman's earlier books, The World Is Flat unrelentingly upbeat in tone, but its subtext about energy independence and the perils of free trade points to a future rather different from the one he is boosting: one in which America scales back its over-extended global role, and turns inwards to build globalisation in one country.

The Independent A C Grayling

Friedman's book is an essential read for anyone interested to know where the next lightning-fast passage of travel over the surface of our ever-more-flattened earth is going to take us.

Washington Post Warren Bass

Showcases Friedman's gift for lucid dissections of abstruse economic phenomena, his teacher's head, his preacher's heart, his genius for trend-spotting and his sometimes maddening inability to take himself out of the frame.

The Spectator Graham Stewart

Friedman, although not the most subtle of literary stylists, is one of a small number of communicators who writes intelligibly about trends in international economics and the effect they have on all of us.

The New York Times Book Review Fareed Zakaria

Excellent... [but] once Friedman gets through explicating his main point, he throws in too many extras.

The Nation George Scialabba

Whatever one thinks of Friedman as an analyst (and I'd say there's only one possible opinion of him as a prose stylist), he's an energetic reporter and a good storyteller.

New York Review Of Books John Gray

The metaphor of a flat world is worked relentlessly throughout this overlong book, but it is not its incessant repetition that is most troublesome. It is Friedman's failure to recognize that in many ways, some of them not difficult to observe, the world is becoming distinctly less flat.

Los Angeles Times Jacob Heilbrunn

Important, provocative and infuriating.... With his extensive travels, sharp pen and inquiring mind, he could have written a canonic text about free-market capitalism at home and abroad. This is not it. [24 Apr 2005, p.R11]

Daily Telegraph Robert Hanks

Despite all these problems, The World Is Flat works well as an invigorating sketch of the world to come.

Kirkus Reviews

Those who look forward to a planet of Wal-Marts and Dells will be charmed. [15 Mar 2005, p.332]

Daily Telegraph Noel Malcolm

Those who like colourful anecdotes and wisdom served in bite-sized pieces will enjoy this book. Those who want to read something written as if by a grown-up for other grown-ups should turn to the outstanding recent book by Martin Wolf, Why Globalization Works, instead.

The New Republic Ronald Steel

Admirers of The Lexus and the Olive Tree will no doubt find much to admire again, and also much that is familiar in this exuberant and extremely wordy book. But despite its numbing length and its plethora of detail, Friedman's book tells us very little. And what it does tell us is considerably less interesting than what it ought to be telling us.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Martin Walker

Friedman's book is written in the breathless but didactic style that characterizes self-help books or health magazines.

Village Voice Joshua Clover

The World Is Flat is no more a study of global economics than Batman Begins is a social-policy treatise.

The Guardian Richard Adams

Friedman's writing style would still grate, but it would not matter so much if there were any value in his argument. There isn't.

The Economist

A dreary failure.... Mr Friedman's problem is not a lack of detail. It is that he has so little to say.

San Francisco Chronicle Roberto J. Gonzalez

Culturally misinformed, historically inadequate and intellectually impoverished.... A sobering reminder of the intellectual paralysis gripping our society today.

The average user rating for this book is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

dheeraj r gave it a9:
I Higly appriciates this book, this book gave me to look economy in a broder prospective.It is a kind of book which wll ring a bell in your mind,"Wake up boss, It's not a time to yawn" It has been recommended to me by some one and I definitly recommended it to some one else.

Amanda I gave it an8:
Friedman never claims to be a revolutionary. The book is a series of anecdotes which contributed to his revelation about how the world is proceeding. He does a good job of showing the average western person how everything is connected in their own world to the globalized world. If anything this book should serve as a wakeup call for narcissism everywhere and say "you don’t matter...we can replace you". He pays little attention to those who lay outside of the flat world and I am not a fan of the way in which he discusses culture but not everyone can be a cultural relativist.

Joe B gave it a5:
Great eye opener to the average American, however this book was incredibly depressing with all of the metaphors when in all reality I believe America has much to look forward to. As I always say, chew the meat and spit out the fat, great work Friedman.

Genevieve L gave it an8:
I thouroughly enjoyed this book. Althoguh i am still only in highschool, it gave me a great outlook on buisness and what is to come in the future. I definitly reccommend it to anyone!

bernard c gave it a4:
tedious, overly repetitive, self serving, and self adulating. The same sort of view comes from 'the power of productivity' by wm. Lewis without the metaphores (and admittedly without the globalization technology emphasis)

Sheetal RL gave it a10:
Me highly impressed ..M currently working as an E - Recruitment Specialist & this book is being of immense interest to me..I hav a hard copy as well as an e-book to enjoy reading at home as well as in office ;) Keep UP Th e GOOD WORK

Paul D. gave it a0:
This book deserves the worst ranking possible. There is very little substance. It is very repetitive in pointing out that our world is becoming smaller (not flatter!)... gee whiz Friedman, thanks for pointing this out for us! If you are curious about just how bad this book is, don't buy it... read it for 20 minutes in your local library/bookstore and you will quickly make these realizations for yourself.

The World Is Flat A Brief History Of The Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

The World Is Flat
A Brief History Of The Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. Friedman