Green book review: The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman (audiobook)
We're back with our weekly green book review after a short summer vacation and we're happy to do so with a great book in by one of our favorite journalists and authors that has been reintroduced last month in one of our favorite formats - audiobook. Could it get any better?
Our (audio) book for today is:
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio)
What this book is about?
As the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman has traveled to the four corners of the globe, interviewing people from all walks of contemporary life -- peasants in the Amazon rain forest, new entrepreneurs in Indonesia, 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 the new international system that, more than anything else, is shaping world affairs today: globalization. His argument can be summarized quite simply. Globalization is not just a phenomenon and not just a passing trend. It is the international system that replaced the Cold War 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 degree, a global village.
You cannot understand the morning news or know where to invest you money or think about where the world is going unless you understand this new system, which is influencing the domestic policies and international relations of virtually every country in the world today. And once you do understand the world as Friedman explains it, you'll never look at it quite the same way again.
Using original terms and concepts -- from "The Electronic Herd" to "DOScapital 6.0" -- Friedman shows us how to see this new system. With vivid stories, he dramatizes the conflict of "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" -- the tension between the globalization system and ancient forms of culture, geography, tradition and community -- and spells out what we all need to do to keep this system in balance.
Finding the proper balance between the Lexus and the olive tree is the great drama of the globalization era, and the ultimate theme of Friedman's challenging, provocative book -- essential listening for all who care about how the world really works.
About the author (source: New York Times):
Our review:
Don’t get me wrong I got a lot of good information and knowledge from this book, and I will take a lot away from my time within its pages. It’s a full and thorough book that includes anything and everything you could think of on globalization, from WWII all the way to the creation of email and the internet. Even though I was basically aware of the internet’s creation, I found this section very interesting.
The audiobook version of The Lexus and the Olive Tree is available on Audiobooks.com as well as other retailers.
Yours,