The Lexus and the Olive Tree - Hardcover

Friedman, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002570149 ISBN 13: 9780002570145

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

A powerful account of the state of the world today – where fast food and fanaticism, shopping and civil war go hand in hand.

Half of this new, post-cold-war world is intent on building a better Lexus, on streamlining their societies and economies for the global marketplace, while the other half is locked in elemental struggles over who owns which olive tree, which strip of land.

FACT: no two countries with a McDonald’s have been at war.

FACT: Welsh football club Llansantffraid changed its name to ‘Total Network Solutions’ in exchange for $400,000

FACT: betting on the yen lost George Soros $600 million in a day and altered the course of international diplomacy

No power is strong enough to resist the global markets – the key question, addressed in this book, is how best to accomodate them, how to retain national identity and control over our lives while still linking up to the soulless, faceless global institutions in order to survive economically. There is no bigger or more urgent question facing the world

From the devastation of the Mexican economy to the biscuit that helped alter the course of an election, including jungle fighters, Russian gangsters, Japanese burger chain owners and Middle Eastern spies, to name but a few, Friedman brings the human side of his analysis vividly to life.

About this title

About the Author

THOMAS FRIEDMAN was born in Minneapolis in 1943. He completed his post-graduate Middle-Eastern Studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford, before becoming a journalist. From 1979 to 1981, he was UPI’s Beirut correspondent. In 1982, he became the New York Times’ Beirut bureau chief, moving south to Jerusalem in 1984 to become bureau chief there. In January 1989, he became the New York Times’ chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington, where he now lives with his wife and two daughters. Friedman has twice won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from the Middle East.

From the Back Cover

Globalization is the single most powerful force at work in the world today. Whoever we are, wherever we live, there is no escaping its profound effects.

It takes diverse and sometimes bizarre forms , from a shopper in Hong Kong trying to choose between a Michael Jordan baseball cap and one emblazoned with the Red Flag of Communist China, to the downfall of Barings Bank, where a British derivatives trader, based in Singapore, speculating in Japanese paper, destroyed an old English bank, which was then acquired by ING, a Dutch bank, with the help of American bankers.

One half of the world has embraced this new world order and is intent on building a better Lexus, modernizing and streamlining societies for the global economy, while the other half is locked into bitter struggle over the primordial elements of human existence: families, tribe religion and community – the olive tree. Countries where an industrial, multinationally owned future is obliterating the past – Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina – exist side by side with those where old hatreds are rising up to destroy the future, as in Rwanda and Afghanistan.

As national barriers are ripped down by the forces of free market capitalism, and the world moves seemingly irresistibly towards a global homogeneity, there is a renewed yearning to resist that monoculture and to create borders based on personal history, religion, nationalism and culture.

The conflict between the Lexus and the olive tree, between globalization and the powerful, often violent forces of local identity, and the need to find a balance between the two, is the defining theme of this provocative and challenging book.

PRAISE FOR 'FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM:'

“Jubilantly intelligent – a dashing hybrid of autobiography and journalism. Friedman’s book is a lifeline to the sane, a beacon to the hopeful.”
MICHAEL COREN, 'Sunday Times '

“Friedman fills the yawning gap between verbiage and understanding with grace, precision and insight.”
ECONOMIST

“Friedman’s approach is both original and thought-provoking. His analysis of the changing shape of relations between Israel and the American Jewish community is masterful … a striking achievement .”
ANDREW GOWERS, 'Financial Times'

“ A sparkling intellectual guidebook … an engrossing journey not to be missed.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0002570149
• ISBN 13: 9780002570145
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416