The World Is Flat, 3.
I was searching for software, brainpower, complex algorithms, knowledge workers, call centers, transmission protocols, breakthroughs in optical engineering — the sources of wealth in our day. Whenever it suited me, I could walk up to a machine, insert a plastic card, and retrieve Chinese yuan from my American bank account.
Imagine the intricate technological networking required for a transaction that instantly delivers my money to me no matter where I am in the world. This is globalization, or at least a very small example of a very big phenomenon.
The world, driven largely by advances in technology, has become inextricably interconnected across distances and other boundaries.
Arguably one of the most influential popular writers on the nature of globalization is Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist. His most recent best-seller, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, is one of several books that students in the University Scholars program at Seattle Pacific University will be reading in a new class to be offered for the first time this spring: Understanding Globalization, explored the tension between globalization on one side, and culture, geography, tradition, and community on the other.
But it is The World Is Flat, first published inthat created the most widely used metaphor for globalization today. The World Is Flat is filled with stories — and answers to such fascinating questions as: What global strategy makes Wal-Mart so successful — and controversial?
How is Costco different?
Why and how does Boeing tie together engineers and suppliers worldwide? Why do workers in India take jobs answering phone calls from the United States and Europe?
Are two countries connected to the same supply chain less likely to go to war? What happens to jobs as the systems for creating value move from primarily vertical command-and-control systems to horizontal connect-and-collaborate systems? Knowing what is going on in the world is the first step toward becoming educated about globalization.
But how is it that we got to this place? Technology, of course, is one of the major causes of the flattening of the globe. He begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall inone of the most vivid examples of the impact of technology on human history.
For the first decades following World War II, the world was basically divided into three major trading blocs. Then advances in information technology created a dilemma for those regimes that tightly controlled the flow of information.The World Is Flat is an essential update on globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks–environmental, social, and political, powerfully illuminated by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author .
Flat World, Big Gaps: Economic Liberalization, Globalization and Inequality [Jomo K.S., Jacques Baudot] on ashio-midori.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
Flat World, Big Gaps critically considers the impact of economic liberalization and globalization on inequality and poverty.
The first half surveys the major analytical issues in the recent study of global inequalities. In The World Is Flat, Friedman identifies 10 “flatteners” that have reshaped business, our lives, and our world in the 21st century.
He begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall in , one of the most vivid examples of the impact of technology on human history. ashio-midori.com has been an NCCRS member since October The mission of ashio-midori.com is to make education accessible to everyone, everywhere.
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Courses consist of engaging, bite-sized. The World Is Not Flat. How Thomas Friedman gets it wrong about globalization. An excerpt from How to rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, ).
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century is an international best-selling book by Thomas L.
Friedman that analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, wherein all competitors have an equal opportunity.