Lexus And The Olive Tree : Understanding Globalization - (rev edition

Summary: From one of our most perceptive commentators and winner of the National Book Award, a comprehensive look at the new world of globalization, the international system that, more than anything else, is shaping world affairs today.

As the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman has traveled the globe, interviewing people from all walks of contemporary life: Brazilian peasants in the Amazon rain forest, new entrepreneurs in Indonesi ...show morea, Islamic students in Teheran, and the financial wizards on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.

Now Friedman has drawn on his years on the road to produce an engrossing and original look at globalization. Globalization, he argues, is not just a phenomenon and not just a passing trend. It is the international system that replaced the Cold War system; the new, well-greased, interconnected system: Globalization is the integration of capital, technology, and information across national borders, in a way that is creating a single global market and, to some degreee, a global village. Simply put, one can't possibly understand the morning news or one's own investments without some grasp of the system. Just one example: During the Cold War, we reached for the hot line between the White House and the Kremlin--a symbol that we were all divided but at least the two superpowers were in charge. In the era of globalization, we reach for the Internet--a symbol that we are all connected but nobody is totally in charge.

With vivid stories and a set of original terms and concepts, Friedman offers readers remarkable access to his unique understanding of this new world order, and shows us how to see this new system. He dramatizes the conflict of ''the Lexus and the olive tree''--the tension between the globalization system and ancient forces of culture, geography, tradition, and community. He also details the powerful backlash that globalization produces among those who feel brutalized by it, and he spells out what we all need to do to keep the system in balance. Finding the proper balance between the Lexus and the olive tree is the great drama of he globalization era, and the ultimate theme of Friedman's challenging, provocative book--essential reading for all who care about how the world really works.


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Edition/Copyright: (REV)00
Cover: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor Press
Published: 05/02/2000

View Author Bio

Friedman, Thomas L. :

Thomas L. Friedman is one of America's leading interpreters of world affairs. Born in Minneapolis in 1953, he was educated at Brandeis University and St. Anthony's College, Oxford. His first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, won the National Book Award in 1988. Mr. Friedman has also won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting for The New York Times as bureau chief in Beirut and in Jerusalem. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

View Review

''A brilliant guide to the here and now.''

--The New York Times Book Review

''An owner's manual for a globalized world.''

--USA Today

''A spirited and imaginative exploration of our new order of economic globalization.... Not only clear but interesting, not only interesting but necessary to us--first-rate.''

--The New York Times

''A wellspring of economic common sense that will innoculate its readers against the 'globaloney' so prevalent in popular discussions of the subject.... Readers in search of a window onto the problems of the cyberspace-driven 'virtual world economy' of the twenty-first century are unlikely to find a better place to start.''

--Foreign Affairs

''This is an important book; not since Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital has a volume come along that so well explains the technical and financial ether we are all swimming through.... There is hardly a page in the book without an underlineable passage.''

--Salon

''All of us are groping to understand what's going on. For a useful first pass on history, consult Thomas Friedman.''

--Business Week

''Required reading for anyone who still thinks of the Internet as little more than a gimmick for computer nerds--deftly accomplishes the impressive task of encapsulating the complex economic, cultural, and environmental challenges of globalization with the sort of hindsight that future historians will bring to bear upon the subject.''

--The Christian Science Monitor

Random House, Inc. Web Site, December, 2000

View Table of Contents

Foreword to the Anchor Edition
Opening Scene: The World Is Ten Years Old
Seeing the System
The New System	p. 3
Information Arbitrage	p. 17
The Lexus and the Olive Tree	p. 29
... And the Walls Came Tumbling Down	p. 44
Microchip Immune Deficiency	p. 73
The Golden Straitjacket	p. 101
The Electronic Herd	p. 112
Plugging into the System
DOScapital 6.0	p. 145
Globalution	p. 167
Shapers, Adapters and Other New Ways of Thinking About Power	p. 194
Buy Taiwan, Hold Italy, Sell France	p. 212
The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention	p. 248
Demolition Man	p. 276
Winners Take All	p. 306
The Backlash Against the System
The Backlash	p. 327
The Groundswell	p. 348
America and the System
Rational Exuberance	p. 367
Revolution Is U.S.	p. 379
If You Want to Speak to a Human Being, Press 1	p. 406
There Is a Way Forward	p. 434
Acknowledgments	p. 477
Index	p. 480
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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