Customer Reviews
Interesting, yet utlimately incomplete analysis
Having worked in the so called Supermarkets, whose global power is so vehemently extolled by Friedman, I believe his analysis of present day globalization to be accurate and sound - yes, global investment acts as an invisible hand to direct historically domestic political and social concerns; yes, to participate in this market, a country must adapt its social framework as much as its 'hardware' and 'operating system'; and yes, globalization does provide benefits on an ABSOLUTE basis to many emerging economies.
While Friedman devotes a couple sparsely filled chapters to the backlash against this process, he clearly fails to highlight key issues: surely, RELATIVE poverty is a central concern to all of us in the rich world; surely, homogenization of values and culture is a great fear for everyone (yet Friedman believes social structure must be homogenized to work properly in the new market); surely, when barely 1% of our global population own a computer, people are being left behind - and yes, globalization does EFFECT everyone, but who makes the decisions - a tiny fraction of wealthy participants (you're average worker in Africa wants to eat his next meal, and is in no position to question this process - but of course, if you lay the rules down, he/she will jump as high as you say to get capital)....DEVELOPMENT of less fortunate economies is central....the market in its purest form is incapable of doing this! Ripple out effects of wealth simply do not work...wealth remains in the hands of a few super rich.
I am far from a socialist, but for all of our sakes (most of all the world's desperately poor) I hope people start to see that the pure market makes the rich even richer and the poor, even if better of (slightly) on an absolute basis, are way left behind.
But look at how passive Friedman is! Too much of a wimp in my book - explaining the process is important, but for goodness sake, how do we make it more equitable...one clue, the global electronic herd is not the answer. We need to shift our paradigm of thought and think proactively, not helplessly. Finding our own values (yes, there is more to life than consumption) is a step in the right direction.
not nearly as good as Beirut to Jerusalem
Friedman wrote a brilliant book before this called from Beirut to Jerusalem. He spent his whole life studying the middle east, and he lived in Lebanon and Israel for years as a reporter. He (deservedly) won fame and fortune for that book. It's revolutionary. If you haven't read it, do so. Then, the new york times brought him back to the US, and made him their globalization expert. Why? Who knows. He spoke to some economists and other experts, travelled a lot, and got really excited about his success and new job.
This book, about globalization, isn't nearly as good.
Oh sure, he can still Write, and the book is easy to read, full of entertaining anecdotes, and fairly thought provoking. It's when he tries to pull together his Grand Theories of Everything that it becomes embarrassing. He just doesn't seem to have a good grasp of his subject. When talking about free trade, for example, his argument goes something like this: "Well, it works and nothing else does, so you'd have to be pretty stupid to want anything else because it doesn't work. It just doesn't. So there. Now, let me tell you about that cool, cool time when I was in a small village in Kazakhstan..."
Thomas himself is much more present in this book. In Beirut, he took a back seat to his description of the people and events he was seeing. In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, there is a distinct thread running through it: Look at me, look at me, how cool am I? Frankly, I think he deserves to be a tad conceited, but it affects his writing.
Still, this is still an interesting book. There's nothing better out there as far as I'm aware. I just wish I hadn't read his other book first. It's sad to see someone go from brilliant to good.
Sort of rambles, has some great anecdotes and analogies.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree is an important book, but in many ways Thomas Friedman renders his own creation irrelevant. He is almost schizophrenic in his writing style, arguing with himself as if he has yet to make up his mind about the things he is writing. In some ways, it seems like he just prefers to share anecdotes (which are vivid and usually humorous) from his travels around the world, rather than the typical kinds of fact-based research one finds in these sort of books. The result is that the reader can understand some of the concepts, but they can also get a little tedious, and it is hard to translate the anecdotes into something that I assimilate into my worldview.
Furthermore, Friedman seems to love to quote people at length, but one wonders if indeed he is quoting word-for-word, or if he is just sort of crafting something to fit his book out of a vaguely similar comment the person may have made. But, then one thinks again, because the book is almost a little choppy in places because Friedman quotes random characters from all around the world for pages upon pages. One would prefer that he just paraphrase or use shorter quotes.
Because it was written 5 years ago, some of the reading is tedious (he explains what a DVD player is, for example), and in some areas he seems to be caught up in the "irrational" dot-com whirlwind. In his revised version of the book, it sort of just drones on, pontificating for about 20-30 pages too much. Thomas Friedman is a very personable guy, and he has a lot of interesting things to say about the world, but honestly, one doesn't care for his own political/religious philosophy being injected, mostly toward the end of the book. It was just awkward to read through the final chapter or two; the book has multiple personality disorder in some regards.
One almost feel like the book is written for an audience of Dick Gephardts. He wants to win the protectionist wing of the Democratic Party over with the book. He seems to be speaking to them. Maybe he is speaking to Republicans as well, but if so, he lectures a little too sanctimoniously on the environment and the notion of a social safety net (he calls Republicans "mean-spirited voices... uninterested in any compromise" and tries to argue that Africa, with its near-anarchy in places, would be a Republican's dream) to win conservatives over entirely. He sort of just randomly breaks into prostheletyzing, arguing, for example, "That the NRA should feel guilty about the Colombine massacres went without saying." Why even go into that? That's just tacky.
Finally, a reader gets sort of annoyed reading his own made-up terms (Golden Straightjacket, Electronic Herd, etc.), over and over, particularly since none of them caught on whatsoever in the past half-decade since the book came out.
Some of it is dead on, though, particularly when he writes as an observer of the world rather than an activist, and this book is a good way to conceptualize globalization for those who are having a hard time adapting their political ideology in the post-Cold War era. In general, I'd say The Lexus and the Olive Tree starts off strong, ends weak, and that's a shame. It was on track to get 5 stars from me, even with the early tributes to Al Gore and other political cheap shots, but the final part of the book was just THAT lacking, that it falls to 3 stars.
