The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization - Softcover

Friedman, Thomas L

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250013747 ISBN 13: 9781250013743

Publisher: Picador USA, 2012

Synopsis

"A brilliant guide for the here and now."---The New York Times Book Review

In this vivid portrait of the new business world, Thomas L. Friedman shows how technology, capital, and information are transforming the global marketplace, leveling old geographic and geopolitical boundaries. With bold reporting and acute analysis, Friedman dramatizes the conflict between globalizing forces and local cultures, and he shows why a balance between progress and the preservation of ancient traditions will ensure a better future for all. The Lexus and the Olive Tree is an indispensable look at power and big change in the age of globalization.

About this title

Review:

One day in 1992, Thomas Friedman toured a Lexus factory in Japan and marvelled at the robots that put the luxury cars together. That evening, as he ate sushi on a Japanese bullet train, he read a story about yet another Middle East squabble between Palestinians and Israelis. And it hit him: half the world was lusting after those Lexuses, or at least the brilliant technology that made them possible, and the other half was fighting over who owned which olive tree.

Friedman, the well-travelled New York Times foreign-affairs columnist, peppers The Lexus and the Olive Tree with stories that illustrate his central theme: that globalisation--the Lexus--is the central organising principle of the post-cold war world, even though many individuals and nations resist by holding onto what has traditionally mattered to them--the olive tree.

Problem is, few of us understand what exactly globalisation means. As Friedman sees it, the concept, at first glance, is all about American hegemony, about Disneyfication of all corners of the earth. But the reality, thank goodness, is far more complex than that, involving international relations, global markets and the rise of the power of individuals (Bill Gates, Osama Bin Laden) relative to the power of nations.

No-one knows how all this will shake out, but The Lexus and the Olive Tree is as good an overview of this sometimes brave, sometimes fearful new world as you'll find. --Lou Schuler, Amazon.com

Review:

"Required reading...No one gives a better explanation of [globalization] than New York Times correspondent Thomas L. Friedman....Impressive." --The Christian Science Monitor

"Important...Friedman writes in straightforward language that should make globalization's complexities comprehensible. There's a great deal of wisdom in this book." --USA Today

"Friedman gets the economics right. His book is a wellspring of economic common sense that will inoculate its readers against the 'globaloney' so prevalent in popular discussions of the subject." --Foreign Affairs

"Friedman convincingly argues that what creates wealth has suddenly changed....The Lexus and the Olive Tree makes alarmingly good sense; it educates and provokes." --The Baltimore Sun

"A lively mix of anecdote and analysis...full of solid reporting...Friedman is eager, provocative, [and] often entertaining....Insightful." --The Boston Globe

"There is hardly a page in The Lexus and the Olive Tree without an underlineable passage....Friedman has used his remarkable vantage point to provide a readable overview that no academic or narrow-beat reporter could have given us....A genuinely important book." --Salon

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1250013747
• ISBN 13: 9781250013743
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 490