The World Is Flat : Summary

In Friedman’s “It’s a Flat World, After All”, Friedman in a trip Bangalore, India accidentally “encountered the flattening of the world”. The following paper will analyze “It’s a Flat World, After All” and the flattening of the world. To conclude the paper I will summarize my thoughts on the flattening of the world.

Friedman explains the diplomacy of the twenty-first century in the following: "The world has become an increasingly, interwoven place, and today, whether you are a company or a country, your threats and opportunities increasingly derive from who you are connected to" (392). Ever since the invention of such advanced systems, it has indeed become easier to enforce power and priority over individuals and nations of lesser power, and it is now possible to engage in war against powerful rivals to a horrific degree. The consistent and credible threat of a nuclear warfare is not too difficult to uphold, despite the distance or the size of the nation. Friedman also mentions the rise of new superpowers such as the global market thanks to the Internet, an easy accessible network with the entire world. With the global market, any company or individual who utilizes this invention is able to easily manipulate the flow of the economy very similarly to how a nation does. Therefore, the potential of a smaller group of people or even an individual can match that of an entire nation. His closing remark introduces a fate which discourages the presence of security which the United States, a nation which gained its independence and security from other national

The book Flatland is based in a two-dimensional world that explores a one-dimension world, albeit briefly, and a three dimension world. On face value it seems as it is just a mathematical fiction book about a two-dimensional world, but a closer look shows the use of satire to tackle the crude social aspects of Victorian England. Before you can truly understand the profoundness of this book you should understand the author, who originally wrote it under the pseudonym A. Square. The real author is Edwin A. Abbott.

These forces are the direct result of advanced technology. Moreover, the forces were made possible thanks to the World Wide Web (which is another force Friedman mentions). Technology and Internet are the real reasons our world became flat, and the reason the above flattener forces evolved. Companies, groups, and individuals – all connected together to form one global village. US companies started to outsource the back rooms of accounting firms and forwarding Dell customers to the 24/7 call center located in India. US companies were able to reduce cost, while making India a “customer service nation” and China a “low labor cost nation”.

De Blij begins the book by presenting the idea that the world is not as “flat” as most people think. He also begins by defining three groups of people; globals, locals, and mobals. I like the term, flat, that he uses. It is a good word to describe what the globals of the world would like to accomplish. Globals wish to spread their ideas all of over the world. They like to take over countries, and push their way of life onto the people group in that country. It is my understanding that globals think they are helping locals, but when we understand the power of place I’m not sure it is any longer help. Locals are people that were “born and raised” in one region. They most likely die around this region also. The people in

People can no communicate, create, and transfer information within a split of the second. Friedman mentions "Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American individuals and businesses" (Friedman, 631.) What he means is business, and individual are interacting and integrating between one another in the Western and European world, but since; Globalization 3.0 is approaching at a rapid pace. Friedman stated (because it is flattening and shrinking the world, Globalization 3.0 is going to be more and more driven not only by individual but also by a much more diverse--- none-Western, nonwhite---group of individual" (Friedman, 631.) Even though India was the reason he came to the conclusion the world is flat, but during that time, China, Japan, and many other country are doing the same thing. This new era will be power by global market which is striving on competition, and those who can't catch up will be left behind.

Christopher Columbus was an overrated Historical Figure because he didn’t prove the Earth is round. It’s nearly certain that in the 1490s, no one thought the earth was flat. in keeping with historian “no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat.” That was because of scientists, philosophers and mathematicians who, as early as around 600 B.C., created observations that Earth was spherical.

Human beliefs of reality primarily focus on what a person sees around them and what they believe they understand. The three concepts that attach themselves to this belief system are thinking, knowing, and finally being. As person journeys through these concepts, they begin to see that it is not a simple idea to truly understand reality and their part within it. A true understanding of reality flows more from the interconnectedness of these three concepts than from them individually. Once individual concepts are grasped the path towards the full realization of potentiality that these represent is discovered. These concepts allows understanding the main character in Flatland, A. Square, when he proclaimed “I looked below, and saw with my physical eye all that domestic individuality which I had hitherto merely inferred with the understanding. And how poor and shadowy was the inferred conjecture in comparison with the reality I now beheld.” To fully understand the power of this statement, I will demonstrate how thinking, knowing, and being are unique to themselves individually. I will also demonstrate how they interconnect with each other, allowing anyone willing to work through the process a much broader understanding not only of the reality they live in, but additionally the new reality that is now open before them.

Speaker Thomas Friedman is speaking at MIT, which is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “He is an American journalist specializing in foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues. “ (Daniel H. Pink) He is talking about the basis on what the book is about and how he understood this new phenomenon. The book is titled “The World Is Flat”. This title is referring to “the global economic playing field being leveled.” This is a tremendous achievement that all started with Christopher Columbus discovering North America in 1492. This was the first development of the globalization of the world, which today has taken over economies all over the world. This advancement of technology has led to “accidently making Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next-door neighbors”. Mr. Friedman then references in chapter one of his book about all of the encounters he had in India that led him to the conclusion, “The World Is Flat”.

In this chapter, Thomas Friedman looks at how cultures and societies will have to deal with and adapt to the changes that globalization brings to the way of doing business. It affects whole companies and individuals. He gives the perception of the world is flattening by comparing the Industrial Revolution to the IT Revolution that is happening right now. The flattening process was identified by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. Marx’s writings about capitalism state “the inexorable march of technology and capital to remove all barriers, boundaries, frictions, and restraints to global commerce (Friedman 234).”

In Thomas L. Friedman’s “Globalization: The Super-Story”, he examines the features of globalization from various aspects and how it helps people better understand 9/11 events. He claims that globalization is the new improved system formed in place of the old “cold war system”(102), and through the patterns of which, people observe today’s world in an integrated way. Simple short phrases, organized structure, colloquial language, and punctuation are techniques Friedman uses to create a reader-friendly, convincing essay. To begin with, Friedman uses simple short phrases to emphasize his points. He starts with an enthusiastic term “big believer” (102), which establishes the colloquial

In Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat he presents his idea of the globalization of the world in all areas; from economic to communication with other countries. Friedman is a journalist from the New York Times and most of his work focuses on economic and technological innovations and advancements, and furthermore how they are associated to history. The ideas he presents in this book are both plausible and convincing. The main focus is whether the world is “flat“. The answer to this question depends on the readers’ political, economical, and technological opinions. Friedman does however present evidence in many situations where the globalization of the world is clearly evident. This essay will explore these different

Author Thomas L. Friedman analyses the technological advances that are creating a level economic playing field with previously disadvantaged countries rising in knowledge and wealth rivaling that of the United States and other world powers in the world. Telephone and computer technology, previously a stronghold only of developed countries, is now easily accessible and has been accessed and mastered by countries such as China and India, making these nations competitive. Friedman perceives the flattening effect as so insightful as to be compared in scope to the Industrial Revolution.

The phrase: "the world is flat" can be interpreted in many ways. Basically what Friedman means by "flat" is "linked." The falling of trade and political barriers and technical advances have made it possible to do business, instantaneously with billions of other people around the world. It has allowed for parts of the world, which had previously been cut off, like China and India, to successfully compete in the world market. Thus, the playing field is being leveled, and no one nation has an advantage. Friedman could also refer to a "flat world" in a metaphorical sense. In a spherical earth you cannot see around the world and cannot recognize the opportunities far from where you live. If the world were flat you could see it all. There

In view of Thomas Friedman’s work “It’s a flat world, after all”, the entire planet is turning into a global village due to a rapid growth of information technology. There are 10 major contributors, which were also named “flateners” by Friedman, that made the playing field level. Undoubtedly, current sophistication in technology has provided us great access to internet, a virtual platform where people are capable of communicating, sharing knowledge, or performing online activities. Globalization appears to have collapsed the concerns of space and time by outsourcing cheap labor from another continent to undertake the same task but with equal or better performance. To some extent, Friedman has brought about an