Rating: 
Summary: Twisted arm
Review: I read this book for a class I was taking - only because it was required. Parts of it were understandable, but in my opinion Thomas Friedman likes to hear himself talk and is a quite full of himself. I will definately be returning this book to the bookstore!
Rating:
Summary: Yes, Mr. Friedman's use of Enron is most unfortunate
Review: Just an echo to bcramer's comment. I bought this book last year,
found it very readable and providing very much food for thought.However, yes. Friedman's frequent and, as it turns out, unfortunate use of Enron and its officers as models of a corporate adaption to the global economy now cast doubt on the validity of his authority. One would think, given the prominence of Enron in the news
and the frequency of Friedman's NY Times columns and New Hour appearances that he would feel obliged to devote at least a column to the coporation that he has held up as a model. But a Google search of "Thomas Friedman" and "Enron" turns up no direct comment from Mr. Friedman on Enron, at least for the
past two months. Almost as if he never heard of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Even Close to the Whole Story
Review: The writer of this book, Thomas Friedman, has impressive credentials as a globetrotting journalist and expert on international economics. I'm sure that on the job he is required to be objective and impartial. But that's not the case in this heavy-handed and very arrogant book on globalization. You may find this book informative and fun to read, but beware that you're not getting anything close to the full story on this phenomenon. Friedman's writing style is mostly conversational and easy to read, though he tends to talk about his own friends and adventures way too much. Also, Friedman can't stop making up his own terminology, like Golden Straitjacket, Electronic Herd, Globalution, Glocalism, and the especially irritating DOScapital. The problem is, Friedman merely throws these terms at numerous and scattershot examples of phenomena that may possibly lend them meaning, but fails to adequately describe them himself. Parts One and Two of this book are actually quite strong as Friedman remains mostly objective in describing the rise of globalization and where things stand today. He also includes a surprising amount of coverage on the negative effects on the environment and non-Western cultures (for the time being). Unfortunately, this book collapses into a firestorm of arrogance in Part 3, which is misleadingly titled "The Backlash Against the System." Here Friedman actually spends more time criticizing those who can't or won't jump on the sacred globalization bandwagon. He uses the derogatory term "turtles" for people who are being left behind by the new economic realities around the world, and doesn't care if it's not their fault. He demeans concern for disadvantaged peoples and countries as "politically correct nonsense" (pg. 355). Some portions of this book are getting outdated, which is not Friedman's fault, but the gaps are very revealing. Several times he cites Enron as a strong global company with the world's best interests at heart, and failed to predict the tech stock crash of 2000 and how it would drastically slow down the US-led growth of the world economy (see chapter 17). This shows that Friedman's predictions in this book are already starting to fall apart. Friedman also completely avoids the issue of corporate domination, as rulings by the pro-corporate WTO have allowed multinational companies to supersede the laws of sovereign nations (such as the blatant disregard for Nigeria's environmental laws by Western oil companies). Finally, Part Four of this book descends into anemic boosterism as Friedman tries to convince us that American culture and corporations will solve all the world's ills as peoples around the world happily embrace globalization. By this point, Friedman has left objectivity far behind. His clear contempt for those who are concerned about globalization's destructive effects, and his apparent belief that American corporations only wish to solve the world's ills, prove that he has not succeeded in telling the full story. Not even close.
Rating: 
Summary: The Idiot's Guide to Globalization
Review: Whether or not a person likes, refuses to acknowledge, or belives in globalization the fact of the matter is that we are in the age of globalization and there is no turning back. I read Mr. Friedman's book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" and I was struck by his keen insight into the forces at work in the Middle East. The Lexus and the Olive Tree is written just as thoroughly and authoritatively. Mr. Friedman uses actual events he has witnessed to back up his assertions and hypothesis on the origins and the impact of globalization. I think this book does not sit well with many because Friedman is so adept at sweeping away the norms and assumptions that characterized the "old order." Put simply, America, in many ways is no longer the "global hegemon" and the world's reference point. When you think about the fact that 15 years ago Thailand was a poverty-ridden backwater, barely subsisting on a "rice economy" and now it is the world's second largest producer of pick-up trucks (second to Detroit), and the world's fourth largest producer of motorcycles, it is safe to assume that "globalization" has unleashed the pent-up potential of many countries like Thailand, and that this is bound to have an impact on the "shape of the world." I applaud Mr. Friedman for not being bound by selfish interests and fatuous loyalties to outdate orthodoxies. The majority may choose to stick their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the forces at work in the world today, but the reality is that globalization is here to stay.
Rating:
Summary: Some good points, not very convincing though
Review: I agree with the thoughts mentioned by many readers that his narrative is full of self-importance of knowing (& ridiculing) important people from the world over.
There were some important points though which impressed me - " Socialism is the best system for distribution of wealth, but Capitalism is the best system for creation of wealth."
Alongside this, I was also reading "Views From the South", where authors point out the extreme bias of the developed world (Friedman's Lexuses) in forums like the WTO against the Third World (the olive trees), which left me quite unconvinced in several of Friedman's rationalizations.
Rating:
Summary: Reportorial treatment of globalization's issues
Review: In essence, Thomas Freidman writes his survey of globalization like a series of newspaper columns. Since he is a highly successful reporter and columnist for the New York Times, this is scarcely surprising. People who would prefer a more abstract, deeper, or more condensed treatment will do well to look elsewhere, but Friedman's book is very good of its kind. It is lively, clear, and well written. Above all, it is reasonably thorough and quite well balanced. While Friedman believes that globalization is generally a good thing, he is aware of the many concerns and doubts about the phenomenon and treats them well. It has now been two years since this revised edition appeared and a great deal has happened, including the dot-com crash and September 11. Aside from a few points of detail, however, (eg, his encomia to Enron and its CEO Kenneth Lay on pp 387-388) there is little that sounds out of touch.
Rating:
Summary: Way too many arrogant anecdotes
Review: An interesting book with some good ideas and some that I disagreed with, Friedman gets kind of irritating after a while. He uses so many different anecdotes to get his points across, that they become extremely irritating because it seems as though Friedman is just trying to prove how great he is by knowing so many different kinds of people in so many places. After about 100 pages you really don't want to hear about his orange example in Japan or wherever. He does make some good arguments against anti-globalization which are well worth thought, but overall not really worth reading. The book is just an extended editorial. Read his NYTimes editorials instead and maybe you won't get as annoyed.
Rating:
Summary: The Lexus and the Olive Tree
Review: Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, presents a very readable, understandable book on globalization filled with sories to illustrate his points. He explains that "the Berlin Wall did not just fall in Berlin". and the end of the Cold Wall brought down the barriers worldwide leading the way for globalization. Simply put the Lexus represents technology and innovation as opposed to the olive tree representing community, family and values. Fridman uses several terms to describe his points: Microchip Immune Deficiency, The Electronic Herd and the Golden Straitjacket. The Microchip Immune Deficiency describes the downside of lack of connectivity in a country or "How fast is your modem?". The Electronic Herd is described as the investor herds that roam freely on the vast global economic plain from country to country investing. The Golden Strait Jacket and Globalution is the pressure from the Electronic Herd on developing countries to democratize by provding more transparency, decreased corruption, free press and free elections. Friedman was apparently the first to write about "The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Resolution" or that no two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each other got its McDonald's. Friedman has some discussion on how to develop globalization that is environmentally sustainable and the ability of countries to globalize and maintain their individuality or sense of culture. He offers some solutions or possible scenarios through a chapter on geo-architecture. Friedman calls upon us to begin to think about developing Integrationist Social Safety Net policies. This book is excellent beginning text on globalization but it definitely needs to be followed with some additional reading material with opposing viewpoints to get the full picture of the issues surrounding globalization.
Rating:
Summary: Globalization 101
Review: Considering that this book deals basically with economics, it is very accessible. By using anecdotes and drawing from personal interviews with economists and industrialists, Friedman gives a compelling overview of the coming changes in the world economy. He tries to explain why so many counties are afraid of Americanization, but sees it as an inevitable outcome of economic growth. Though he seemed prescient about 9-11, he did not envision the current Enron debacle. In fact, he sees the big, modern corporations as the white knights in the battle for economic leadership.
Rating:
Summary: Friedman could hardly be more obtrusive.
Review: Talk about an author overawed by his own self-importance! Friedman's favorite device is to reduce to a cute epithet what anyone who has been paying attention tends to know intuitively and then beat the reader into submission with it. (It's what I call the Flagellant Phrase, Mr. Friedman.) His thesis that globalization represents a "system" that has replaced the old Cold War world order is specious at best and never proven by the evidence presented here. Phenomenon, yes; system, no. Friedman assumes that mere repetition will give his theme the weight of authority. Another flaw: the author invariably defaults to using analogies to explain economic concepts, which not only gets irritating, it untimately trivializes the subject matter. There are anecdotes aplenty as we trot back and forth across the globe, but it all tends to be spoiled by the author's enormously self-indulgent "wit". If you want a more interesting treatise on globalization, try Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld. Better still, if you really want to understand the new world order, try Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the New World Order, Friedman's introductory dismissal of which is laughable, leading this reviewer to doubt whether the author had even read it. One week of the Wall Street Journal will tell you more than you'll learn here.
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