The World Is Flat 2005 First Edition 31st Printing HC/DJ

Friedman's enormously successful examination of globalization and the technological, economic, and political forces reshaping the early twenty-first century. Published in 2005, the book popularized the metaphor of a newly 'flat' world in which communications technology, outsourcing, global supply chains, open-source collaboration, and rapidly expanding international markets had dramatically reduced traditional barriers of geography. The original edition became a national bestseller and one of the defining popular works on globalization of its period. This is the original 2005 first-edition text, preceding Friedman's later expanded and updated editions. The copyright page states 'First edition, 2005,' but the number line reads 31 33 35 34 32. Under FSG's descending-number convention, the lowest surviving number identifies the printing, making this the 31st printing of the first edition, not a first printing. This distinction is important because many marketplace listings loosely describe later impressions as "First Edition" based solely upon the printed edition statement. A true first printing carries the complete number sequence down to 1. The jacket is also a later-state design; documented first-printing copies are found with the earlier "ships falling off the edge of the world" artwork rather than the familiar Earth-as-a-coin image used here. Condition: Near Fine / Near Fine-. Hardcover is square, tight, and exceptionally clean, with handsome gray paper-covered boards, dark gray spine, and bright silver spine lettering. Interior is clean and unmarked. There is a slight crease affecting the leaves through approximately page 13, visible principally as a shallow vertical handling crease; thereafter the text block is Near Fine, with clean, supple pages and no observed writing, highlighting, tears, or foxing. Dust jacket is bright and complete, not price-clipped, with minor edge/corner handling, slight wrinkling and a few very small edge imperfections consistent with careful shelf use. Overall an unusually attractive example of a very late printing of the original 2005 edition. Thomas L. Friedman (b. 1953) is an American journalist, foreign-affairs columnist, and author whose reporting has focused extensively on the Middle East, international economics, technology, and globalization. After studying Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis University and Middle East studies at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, he joined The New York Times in 1981 and subsequently served as its Beirut and Jerusalem bureau chiefs. Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner - receiving the prize for international reporting in 1983 for his work from Lebanon, again in 1988 for his coverage of Israel, and in 2002 for commentary examining the international consequences of terrorism. His first major book, From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, while later books such as The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World Is Flat established him as one of the most widely read American interpreters of globalization.…