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Digital Cameras - Camcorders - The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
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List Price: $27.50
Our Price: $4.47
Your Save: $ 23.03 ( 84% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.90511
EAN: 9780374292881
ISBN: 0374292884
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2005
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: 2005-04-05
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: New lipstick on a old pig!
Comment: A transparent attempt to justify the new colonialism. In the 16th century it was the great nations of Europe, in the 21st it is the multinational corporation. It is still exploitation of the haves by the have-nots, just a lot of new lipstick on the same old pig!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but overly optimistic
Comment: I think it's too optimistic for today's world. I mean, geez, how long ago was this written? So far, things aren't getting better like he seemed to think they would. It's all good for India but sucks for the U.S. Except he acts like it's good for all of us.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thomas Friedman is one of the most phenomenally stupid people who has ever achieved public prominence
Comment: If you want a good review of *The World Is Flat*, google these words: Matt Taibbi flathead. Here are some gems:
-Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:
"I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins."
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
-By the end--and I'm not joking here--we are meant to understand that the flat world is a giant ice-cream sundae that is more beef than sizzle, in which everyone can fit his hose into his fire hydrant, and in which most but not all of us are covered with a mostly good special sauce.
-This is the intellectual version of Far Out Space Nuts, when NASA repairman Bob Denver sets a whole sitcom in motion by pressing "launch" instead of "lunch" in a space capsule. And once he hits that button, the rocket takes off.
Thomas Friedman is a hack and a moron; and it does not surprise me in the least that those who bought his book also bought Malcom Gladwell's stuff. They are both mental midgets who pander to the same crowd of ignorant, grasping PC yuppies who put just enough effort BSing their way through high-school and college and just had enough family connections to land upper-middle-class corporate gigs and are now seeking to justify themselves by reading a book about how they're at a new vanguard and to get their children, who will have unfortunately regressed even lower than they--a leg up in the Braying New World. Any book that doesn't require them to know or learn anything or to think at all is suitable.
If you have a modicum of intelligence, this book, as well as anything else written by the monumental idiot Thomas Friedman, is a waste of your time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wow! We Need to Change.
Comment: Purchaed as a gift, but plan to read, also. I know we will be changed by it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Keep in mind...
Comment: That this is a journalistic work, not an academic. This is not meant for intellectuals or professors, nor is it meant to be an analysis of, well, anything. It is simply subjective "gotcha" reporting. Friedman has done what he has always done best..find people to quote and make catchy slogans. I rate this 1 star because this is neither good for people wanting an introduction to political economy or people who have already built a firm foundation in the realm: As a starting point this will build a completely misleading and false foundation, as an ending this is laughable.
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Editorial Reviews:
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When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.
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