(Note: This is a re-post with minor edits. I once posted this summary in my old blog in 2006, which does not exist now).
Book Title: The World is Flat (Author: Thomas L. Friedman)
This book points out that the world is now flat, where all the playing fields are leveled. The fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 had triggered more openness throughout the world (end of Cold War, no more Soviet and so on). Coincided by many breakthroughs and advancements of information technology, the openness has quickly and dramatically empowered individuals, groups, companies and even countries to work, collaborate and compete more equally, creatively, intelligently in a new platform which operates without regard to geography, distance, and, in the near future, even language. Everybody everywhere can plug and play with everybody else.
It’s interesting to know how Mr. Friedman as an American was worried that the US is not preparing the current generation well enough to face the future competition to China, India, East Europe and the others. Well, look at us here in Indonesia, with the current educational system, the poor will have limited access to good quality education, and, with most of us here are poor people, how will we compete…
Mr. Friedman also admitted that in many ways many parts of the world are still unflat, being left behind, which are the unflattening forces: many people are too sick (by AIDS, malaria, TB, etc), too poor (no access to participate), too frustrated (al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror organizations), and too much consuming natural resources (big cities eating up fuels and polluting the earth).
This is an exciting read, pointing out our modern history. Mr. Friedman’s comments on Arab-Muslim world should be read by Muslims as valuable critics (most left behinds are in the Arab-Muslim part of the world).
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