Book Price Comparisons
|
| ||||||||||||
 My friends were right! A must read for everyone over 50. It has been difficult to keep up with the ever increasing rate of change in the world. What a wonderful time to be alive. My friends were right: I have put down the fiction to read this book.  Much Ado About the Obvious Friedman's premise is that the advent of near-instantaneous worldwide data communications is an unprecedented change in the ways we do business around the world. However, much the same thing has happened several times in history, beginning with the advent of the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, which reduced the time to get a message from New York to London from 10+ days to minutes. Radio-based telephone communications were available starting in 1927, and in 1956 the first transatlantic telephone cable provided wired voice communications across the Atlantic. What is new is worldwide data communications via the Internet, which does change (again) the way we do business - as anyone who has called their credit card customer service, and found themselves talking to an extremely polite person who had the account records in front of them, and spoke excellent English with a very slight accent, can attest. I don't see this as a fundamental change, but an incremental one - a matter of opinion. Unfortunately, Friedman takes almost 500 pages to make this point, with example after example...... He also lost my esteem fairly early on (page 5) when he credited Columbus with proving that the world is round - which is complete nonsense. Columbus (and most of educated Europe) knew perfectly well that the world was round. Columbus' only error was in believing (or claiming) that the world is smaller than it is - making his planned trip to the East Indies by sailing to the west feasible (except for the unknown continents in between). In any case, Columbus' voyage from Europe to the West Indies and back could have been done on a flat Earth. It was one ship of the fleet of Ferdinand Magellan that "proved" it conclusively by completing a circumnavigation of the Earth in 1522. These comments refer to the first edition. an engaging book on a potentially boring subject Picking up a book on 21st century economics may seem a bit dull to some, but not this book. Friedman writes about global issues in a way that excites and enthralls. He helps bring clarity without oversimplifying. His book details the major changes that have taken place in our world in the last 5-18 years and how they have changed everything. He deals with developments in politics, economics and technologies and how these developments are weaving together to form a "flat" world. The only possible drawback is the books length. He could have said it all in 300, not 600 pages.  Great gift My husband loves this book. From his review, I am inclined to read it as well. | |||||||||||||