The World Is Flat Globalization

Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat is an engaging analysis of globalization in the modern world, including what led to it and how it has the potential to impact the future. Beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, he purports, the world saw a sharp increase in market-driven cooperation amongst Western and Eastern countries. Friedman labels this Globalization 3.0, and insists that the technological revolution of the past decades will continue to make the world an even smaller place. Friedman employs case studies and snappy, engaging chapter names to frame the concepts expressed throughout the book. Major themes include the importance of education in a global economy, the values of free trade, and the individual’s

He prominently compares himself to Christopher Columbus, claiming just as the explorer proved definitively that the earth is round, he now has to prove the world is flat (in a metaphorical sense). First of all, the vast majority of people accept globalization as a fact; the evidence for it surrounds most people’s everyday lives— no one is questioning the concept itself, so Friedman’s job is merely to explain his theory as to the underlying “why.” Further, and more significantly, Columbus did not in fact set sail to prove the earth is round (Friedman 4). In fact, this notion was not even popularized until 1828 when Washington Irving published an unreliable biography about the explorer (Strauss, The Washington Post). It raises the question, if such a foundational concept of one of the author’s prevalent metaphors is fallacious, if other arguments of his are being mispresented as

While this is, in and of itself, a minor and understandable word choice inaccuracy, when coupled with the historical error, it challenges the validity of a scholarly piece of literature. That said, the author does present enlightening insight into a variety of factors in the recent wave of globalization. His viewpoint draws from a range of sources, from his time touring a factory in India, to the outsourcing of Virgin of Guadeloupe dolls from Mexico to China, to the September 11 attacks here in the United States, and encompasses both the international and local impacts of