The World Is Flat: Updated and Expanded

I have been re-reading Thomas Friedman's book, The World Is Flat. I say REreading because it was only a couple of years ago that this book was first published, and it became an international best-seller ... not only in the business world, but also in general circulation. The theme of the book is that business and trade worldwide is becoming a level playing field ... thus the term "flat." The United States, with its competitive, free enterprise economic structure, had an advantage over most of the rest of the world during the last century. There were three dominant economies during the 1900's: Europe, Japan and the United States, and we were the top economy among those three. Everybody else was "third world." That, of course, is oversimplification, but you get the idea. That has changed, Friedman said in his first book, and he tells how in a very compelling way. But as he went around the country talking about his book he kept getting a question from parents. Friedman describes it this way: "O.K., Mr. Friedman, thank you for telling us that the world is flat- now, what do I tell my kids?" So, they have come out with an "Updated and Expanded edition". In this new edition he talks about the education world, and I first came back to his book when I learned one of the schools he visited was Georgia Tech. So, I picked up the new version to see what he had said. In a new Chapter 7 called "The Right Stuff", Friedman talks about new teaching systems on North Avenue. That chapter makes one proud to be a Georgian, but that is not the point. The point is that this new, expanded edition talks very directly about the WORLD our children, or grandchildren, are living in and how this new, flat world is going to affect the next generation of Americans. Let me suggest you read it ... all 500-plus pages of it.

This is Gordon Sawyer, and may the wind always be at your back.