The World is Flat – Thomas L. Friedman

Nov. 2005 – This book was recommended by one of our regional vice presidents in SW Virginia. The book is excellent for giving a background and overview to the articles that are appearing every day from the Wall Street Journal to BusinessWeek. Globalization seems to have come out of nowhere with the rise of India and China seemingly an overnight phenomenon. Friedman gives a great deal of background on what has happened over the last 50 years that has led to the rise of these countries that only recently we considered to be poor and overpopulated. His research is integral to understanding what is happening every day and how there could soon be other superpowers economically and politically in a very short time. The book is extremely well written and I found it riveting from start to finish. I even read sections of it aloud to my teenaged children to help them understand how our educational system has contributed to an impending shortage of engineers and scientists. I think this book is destined to be the definitive text of it’s time on the factors leading to our current world economy.