Very thought provoking...Friedman takes you back on a time machine to early thousands and roll you back into present time with such fast pace and intensity

Thomas Friedman book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, his alarming epiphany is that after all the world is flat, was really about globalization that shrunken the world into a tiny large-piece. He divided the development into three phases Globalization 1.0 (1492-1800) to a medium size shrinking due to im... (show more)

Very thought provoking...Friedman takes you back on a time machine to early thousands and roll you back into present time with such fast pace and intensity

Thomas Friedman book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, his alarming epiphany is that after all the world is flat, was really about globalization that shrunken the world into a tiny large-piece. He divided the development into three phases Globalization 1.0 (1492-1800) to a medium size shrinking due to imperial conquest and natural resources, 2.0 (1800-2000) shrunken to small size due to companies globalizing for markets and labor, and last 3.0 (started in 2000) characterized by individuals and small groups globalizing in search of empowerment, which shrunken the world to a tiny size and flattened at the same time.
Moreover, Friedman also lists 10 forces during 1990’s that have lead to and converged by 2000 to produce the last stage: 1989 the fall of Berlin Wall; 1995 Netscape went public and fiber-optic cable drove down cost of transmitting all sorts of information and increased people-to-people connectivity; Y2K created tremendous human and computer infrastructure; followed by group of flatteners focused on new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate and share knowledge—outsourcing, off-shoring, open-sourcing, in-sourcing, supply-chaining, informing (Google, Yahoo & other search engines); and last is “the steroids” or "turbochargers" are all of the above types of collaboration so that people can do any of them, from anywhere, with any device.

Indeed a great read and look forward to his next book: Hot, Flat and Crowded! (show less)