The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

I topple my hat to Mr. Petersen's review for providing such intellectual critique to Mr. Friedman, who unfortunately played the extreme simplification card, for the sake of reaching broader audience, on the expense of supporting his argument with inaccurate facts alongside assumptions.

Although every person is entitled to present an argument of any topic, my problem with Mr. Friedman lies in his connoisseur attitude of almost all today's challenging topics, be it economics, technology, business, terrorism, middle east, environment, and what the solutions will be, without having personal background credibility.

Ironically, Mr. Friedman enjoys broader credibility than expert economists in globalisation such as Messrs. Stiglitz and Bhagwati.

After all, Mr. Friedman's simplification/inaccuracy combination is his own panacea.

The ideas were unoriginal, not at all provocative, the conversational style annoyed me all the book did was tell me things I already knew. Perhaps the book would be good for people who have been walking around with their eyes completely shut, but for a book that claims to conduct a brief history of the 21st century, it did nothing for me but narrate a story from the view of an American.

Friedman does a good job explaining how the world became flat, or I would say almost flat. The examples are very relevant, although the book originally was written in 2004. His "Dell Theory" deserves applause.

I am surprised by how many reviewers described this book as "well written." I found it extremely wordy. The content to word ratio here is extremely low. The ideas in this book could have (and should have) been expressed in 150 pages or less. Instead Friedman drones on for close to 600 pages. The extreme length would have been justified if the book had gone into detail about certain topics or provided more rigorous analysis of different points of view. Instead its 600 pages of high level fluff. Does anyone really need a 600 page tome to tell them we are doing a lot of business with India? Is making a point concisely a lost art? Was Friedman paid by the word? Can I find an Indian gentleman to write me an executive summary of this leviathan?

It is an interesting book, and Friedman brings up a lot of arguable points Its crazy how much outsourcing really goes over seas to China and India.