Critical Analysis of the World Is Flat

The irony of Thomas L . Friedman 's newest book The World is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is , of course , its title Who would believe that an ancient geographical fallacy would come full circle to describe the most complex development to affect business and political relationships in the entire world ? That is exactly the point of Friedman 's book as he asserts the thesis that the world is flat , or in other words , that the once remote corners of the world have become so accessible to everyone that they present

virtually no barrier to the operations of business of all kinds

In to fully digest Friedman 's premise , the vastness of technological change and the idea of globalization must be accessible Clearly , Friedman 's own travels to India and his conversations with Jerry Rao provide him the basic framework to understand how the incredible mitosis of technological advancement has affected the way companies conduct business . He likens it to the evolution of a computer product , with the newest version , Globalization 3 .0 , empowering all individuals of all countries to plug in and play (2005 ,

. 11 . In fact , he frames the evolution of this phenomenon in , first technological advances in the forms of Microsoft , Netscape , fiber optics , programming education and software and then in the birth of collaborative communities that became so vast and organized in the mid 1990s that they even united such unlikely bedfellows as Apaches and IBM .Is the world really flat or is this just a knee jerk reaction to inherent fears in technology itself ? Friedman makes a convincing argument as he provides examples in the call industry , the medical field , accounting , personnel services , news reporting , military and even fast food . His discussion of how UPS ceases to be simply a delivery company , but a conglomerate force behind tennis shoes and pizza is compelling . Indeed , it is difficult to find any segment of society that is not flattening , in as far as Friedman defines it . Perhaps the only part of the business world that is actually growing rifts is in personal business relationships . If people are now interconnected globally , it becomes easier to lose the interpersonal angle to business . A computer screen has replaced the corner store and a newly-learned American accent replaces the familiar voice of Mayberry 's phone operator

However , Friedman tempers his excitement with the knowledge that real human beings don 't always act in each other 's best interest . He , at first , questions Rao , What will stay in America (2005 ,

. 13 ? The answers look grim for some middle-American workers . Grimmer still is the realization that terrorists utilize the same technological structures to kill that businesses use to flourish . However , Friedman seems to conclude that this wave of change is just that - a wave , an unstoppable force that has incredible power to benefit society . What society does with it is a separate entity from the wave and must be monitored as any other security issue

As far as...