Working in the world of technology and growing up in the era of the home computer (and having one of the first computers I knew of that was NOT an Apple IIGS), none of this book surprised me. It seems to me that Friedman is simply trying to coin a label for the phenomenon happening in today's global marketplace.
While this book draws attention to some things many people have never heard of, such as outsourcing, insourcing, third world poverty, the ability of seemingly random countries to produce and supply items more cheaply and send them to other countries, it seems more a work of stating the obvious than of coming up with revolutionary ideas.
I did follow and agree with some of the points from the first half of the book about outsourcing. His argument that the free trade theory will continue to hold is hope-inducing. I felt he was stretching for content, though, in several instances in the last few chapters of the book. For example:
1. He theorizes that because the world is flattening, more and more students are using text message code in their schoolwork. I hate to break it to him, but appreviations aren't exactly new. We didn't need cell phones or online chat to come up "w/ u r my bff 4E, B mine b/c i luv u" in note passing between classes in 7th grade. In my unqualified opinion, anyone who turns in a paper with that kind of jargon is careless.
2. He argues that those who are close enough to the flat world but are not in it have it the worst because they can see what they do not have. Hasn't this always been the case, "flat world" aside? Can you really feel like you're missing clean water if you don't know it exists? This is not "flat world" specific. Wasn't this the kind of anger that fueled the Nazi regime?
All in all, this was an easy read for a nonfiction book, but feel free to skip over sections about things you're already aware of.
