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Summary: This book opens eyes, brains, and makes sense
Review: He's not the best national columnist for nothing. Tom Friedman can grasp a complicated subject and explain it quickly and brilliantly. An excellent, thoughtful work.
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Summary: From USA Today and Salon:
Review: "Friedman writes in straightforward language that should make globalization's complexities comprehensible. There's a great deal of wisdom in this book. Friedman reminds us that the world has grappled with this phenomenon before... At his best, Friedman represent a direct, and enjoyable, challenge to the white-shoed Council on Foreign Relations types who treat international affairs as inherently the province of 'gentlemen' rather than lay-people... This really is an owner's manual for a globalized world." DAVID LYNCH, USA TODAY"This is an important book; not since Nicholas Negroponte's 'Being Digital' has a volume come along that so well explains the technical and financial ether we are all swimming through... There is hardly a page in the book without an underlineable passage... [Friedman] has used his remarkable vantage point to provide a readable overview that no academic or narrow-beat reporter could have given us... [A] genuinely important book." --SCOTT WHITNEY, SALON
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Summary: Wonderfully readable, provocative, sobering book.
Review: Tom Friedman's page-turner on globalization and its consequences (and discontents) is a delightful book, one that entertains, informs and educates. I've followed Friedman's career from the time he was a wire-service correspondent sui generis in the Middle East, and I've always thought him to possess an extraordinary, incisive intellect. He also has a remarkable ability to read people, places and policies quickly and accurately. His latest book is a wonderful gift to those of us who are already Friedman's fans--and also are concerned about understanding better how our interdependent world is evolving. His book features not only the victors of globalization but also its victims: it's a book with both a head and a heart.
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Summary: Good, but not as good as it could have been
Review: Mr. Friedman presents a good overview of the process of globalization and for people who are trying to get a grasp of what that process is all about I would recommend this book. But I know the process is taking place and I know enough about what is driving it to want more than this book offers. I kept waiting for Mr. Friedman to reach conclusions about where the process is going and was constantly disappointed that none were forthcoming. Mr. Friedman's style is also heavily anecdotal, sometimes to the point of becoming a travelogue, and at points Mr. Friedman lets a certain arent-I-clever tone mar his writing. This book is the McDonald's version of globalization: quick, easy to digest, and nutritious enough to keep you alive to your next meal. Readers looking for a more in depth study should go elsewhere; a good introduction to the subject and little else.
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Summary: A Thinking Person's Guide to Globalization
Review: There is no doubt that the world is being homogenized. What is troubling however is that this homogenization has at its core the hegemonization of a single dominant culture. This "lexus"(hegemonization) is at odds with what is central to the individual and to nations, the olive tree(homogenization). When the hegemony of one culture, one country, or one area of the globe forces another culture, another country, or another part of the globe to conform to what the dominant culture considers important, conflicts arise. Freidman's book appropriately considers this conflict and address the balancing act by which the "lexus" and the "olive tree" can coexist, or at least live tolerably within the same place.
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Summary: A place to start to learn about electronic globalization.
Review: Brilliant and well researched by Thomas Friedman who is well qualified to report on the subject. He has done the job of talking to many experts and then making his own conclusions or augmenting theirs in a way all readers can understand. Truly a book that helps one look into the window of the future without arrogance or hyperbole. I highly recommend the purchase of this book, you may find you will go back to it, again and again. It is refreshing that the caliber of Thomas Friedman actually lives up to the term Foreign Affairs Journalist, something lacking in other Washington News Readers and Reporters. Friedman actually thinks of good questions and then tries and find those who can answer them as well as give his own insight. The revelations of his premises leads to some sobering conclusions that many may not agree with, but are worth discussing in any event. Superb book without equal on the current lists of best sellers...Joe Janos
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Summary: Shallow analysis peppered with buzzwords
Review: This book is severely lacking, both in terms of factual information it contains (essentially, none, besides what you already know) or in terms of intelligent analysis. The description of the situations in various countries is incredibly shallow. There is almost no analysis that extracts common, or uncommon, traits from different world affairs. There is no coherent presentation of any tangible trend, and no analysis of the reasons behind it. In fact, the amount of self-promotion by Thomas Friedman is amazing. He describes himself as " an interpreter of contemporary events," yet the book makes no contributions to any literate American citizen's understanding of world affairs whatsoever. He points out that globalization is occuring. Wow. He categorizes different kinds of interactions (state-state, state-individual, state-empowered individual). Gee whiz. Where is the intelligent analysis on global commercialization ? The relationship between McDonald's franchises in Russia and anti-American sentiment ? The cultural isolationism so prevalent in Africa and the Middle East even when globalization is supposedly taking so place at break neck speed ? Amazingly, Thomas Friedman himself takes no stance whatsoever in his book with regard to future events. Perhaps this is acceptable in a politician who is making a presidential bid. For an author, and self-described interpreter of contemporary affairs, this is just spinelessness. Ultimately, no one cares about a shallow categorization of a particular conflict as a "state vs. empowered individual." Tell us something intelligent - extract something at a high level - capture something no one else can - make a unique statement - predict future relationships. Then you are an interpreter of world affairs. Otherwise, you end up being a didactic hack with lots of words but nothing to say.
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Summary: Engrossing and challenging perspective on Globalization
Review: "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is an engrossing and enlightening discussion of the shape of the emerging reality we face: Globalization. In order to make sense of the world today, including but not limited to the U.S. economy and its integration with the international economy and its role among the developing countries' economies and trouble spots (e.g. Kosovo, East Asia and Brazil), people must understand that we are not an island unto ourselves. We are now integrated with the economies and cultures of many countries, including our former enemies, through their insatiable demand for our culture and related products (McDonald's and Microsoft) and our demand for their culture and quality goods (Armani suits and the Lexus). Friedman, the Foreign Affairs columnist of the New York Times and a past Pulitzer Prize winner, writes in a very flowing and entertaining style ("the U.S. is the Michael Jordan Economy") and through his travels around the world tells us that the development of the internet, far-reaching telecommunications and technology has brought all of us together economically and culturally and it is up to each country whether to join in Globalization or be left out to the peril of their people. There is also a lesson for the U.S. and other major countries, that we all have to nurture and respect our roots and cultures if we're all going to live together and prosper in the new "Globalized" world.
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Summary: More praise
Review: A brilliant guidebook to the new world of "globalization"... Like El Nino, globalization is blamed for anything and everything, but few understand just what it really is. In simplest terms, Friedman defines globalization as the world integration of finance markets, nation states, and technologies within a free-market capitalism on a scale never before experienced. Driving it all is what he calls the "Electronic Herd," the faceless buyers and sellers of stocks, bonds, and currencies, and multinational corporations investing wherever and whenever the best opportunity presents itself. It is a pitiless system--richly rewarding winners, harshly punishing losers--but contradictory as well. For nations and individuals willing to take the risk, globalization offers untold opportunity, yet in the process, as the "Electronic Herd" scavenges the world like locusts in the search for profit, globalization threatens to destroy both cultural heterogeneity and environmental diversity. The human drive for enrichment (the Lexus) confronts the human need for identity and community (the olive tree). The success of globalization, Friedman contends, depends on how well these goals can be satisfied at one and the same time. He believes they can be, but dangers abound. If nation states sacrifice too much of their identity to the dictates of the "Electronic Herd," a backlash, a nihilistic rejection of globalization, can occur. If nation states ignore these dictates, they face impoverishment; there simply is no other game in town. Friedman's discussion is wonderfully accessible, clarifying the complex with enlightening stories that simplify but are never simplistic. There are flaws, to be sure. He is perhaps overly optimistic on the ability of the market forces of globalization to correct their own excesses, such as environmental degradation. Overall, though, he avoids the Panglossian overtones that mar so much of the literature on globalization. Artful and opinionated, complex and cantankerous; simply the best book yet written on globalization. --Kirkus
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Summary: Praise for THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE
Review: "In the Cold War, the most frequently asked question was 'How big is your missile?' In globalization, the most frequently asked question is 'How fast is your modem?'" So writes New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Friedman (author of the NBA-winning FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM), who here looks at geopolitics through the lens of the international economy and boils the complexities of globalization down to pithy essentials. Sometimes his pithiness slips into simplicity. There's a jaunty innocence in the way he observes that "no two countries that both had a McDonald's had fought a war against each other, since each got its McDonald's." For the most part, however, Friedman is a terrific explainer. He presents a clear picture of how the investment decisions of what he calls the "Electronic Herd"--a combination of institutions, such as mutual funds, and individuals, whether George Soros or your uncle Max trading on his PC--affect the fortunes of nations. The book's title, in its reference to both the global economy (the Lexus) and specific national aspirations and cultural identity (the olive tree), echoes Benjamin Barber's JIHAD VS. MCWORLD. Like Barber, Friedman takes note of what may be lost, as well as gained, in the brave new world: "globalization enriches the consumer in us, but it can also shrink the citizen and the space for individual cultural and political expression." The animating spirit of his book, however, is one of excitement rather than fear. Some of the excitement is the joy a good lecturer feels in making the complex digestible. Writing with great clarity and broad understanding, Friedman has set the standard for books purporting to teach Globalization 101." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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