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    The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
    The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
    The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
    Audiobook23 hours

    The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

    Written by Thomas L. Friedman

    Narrated by Thomas L. Friedman

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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 globilization era, and the ultimate theme of Friedman's challenging, provocative book -- essential listening for all who care about how the world really works.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJul 2, 2013
    ISBN9781442368057
    Author

    Thomas L. Friedman

    Thomas Loren Friedman is a political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.

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    Reviews for The Lexus and the Olive Tree

    3.5/5

    407 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book was one of the most significant I've ever read to understand human society in a global way. Certainly not to read only once and highly recommendable to anyone who wants to understand the world today, how it works and where it's going in the near future.
    • 5/5
      Great way to learn the world of economics in a few sessions. Good insight and real world experiences paint a picture of what was and what will.
    • 4/5
      Globalization reminds me of compound interest, those who understand it, earn it; those who don't, pay it. It's something that affects individuals, neighborhoods, cities and for sure countries. Businesses could grow by embracing it and the same time could close by ignoring it. We take it for granted nowadays, we just open our phones and talk live with our cousin living thousands of kilometres away and we can buy a stock in our favourite online broker. We need to be cautious though, it's a hard game.
    • 4/5
      This book does incredibly well in explaining the complicated topic of globalization. It's very readable but is not dumbed-down in any manner. Mr. Friedman tries hard to be objective with his views of the world. Although on some chapters, you can tell that he belongs to the optimistic group of the globalization debate. Whether or not you agree with his perspective, it still is worthwhile to read to see if his pronouncements will atleast challenge your own position.
    • 3/5
      I picked this early book by Thomas Friedman after reading his latter book 'The World is Flat' fascinated by globalisation and details of its spread. The book enhanced my understanding about globalisation as a new system replacing old Cold War system. Lexus (depicting modern / latest) emerging alongside Olive Tree (ancient / traditional forces of culture and community) is the core theme of the book. Highly detailed book on the subject.
    • 3/5
      I accidentally shoplifted this book from Housing Works Used Book Cafe, oops.

      Considering how of-the-moment it was in say 1999, I'm not sure how well it's aged. Needs another read.
    • 4/5
      "Globalization" might be the mother of all buzzwords, a catch-all explanation for anything that's happened in the last thirty or so years that's grown nearly meaningless from overuse. In "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," Thomas Freidman does a pretty good job of framing this pheonomenon in a social, historical, and economic context that the average reader can relate to. Freidman obviously thinks of himself as something of a Rennaisance man, a polymath of the old school, and in a sense, this is where the strengths of his book lie. His generalist approach and strong grasp of Cold War-era politics serve him very well when he explains why globalization is the inevitable result of a post-Soviet, unipolar world. He also deserves some credit for mentioning, if not fully exploring, the various downsides to a globalized world. He acknowledges that globalization has its victims and that some people's misgivings about it are probably well-founded. He's still a booster, of course, and, perhaps because he's a newspaper columnist, can't help but try to make a case every time he sets pen to paper, but he's more aware of his argument's weaknesses than many free-traders out there. My objections to "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" are due, perhaps, to the tempremental differences between myself and Mr. Freidman. Freidman, a midwesterner, seems to be a born optimist, something my Yankee constitution just can't abide. As a lefty, I'm much more likely to see unbridled capitalism's downsides than its promieses, and while Freidman moved me to reconsider some of my positions, I don't know if he's convinced me. His enthusiasm for technology hasn't aged well, either, considering that "Lexus" was written ten years ago and the internet has since been done to death in about a trillion uninspired trend pieces. The Friedman of the late nineties would doubtless be disappointed to know that these days it's used mostly as a conduit for pictures of cute cats and scads of hardcore pornography. Friedman's America-centric, which I can forgive, and an inveterate name-dropper, which is somewhat less forgivable. What really worries me, though, is that even though Friedman's a tolerable writer with a clear, friendly tone, he's awful at coining phrases and drawing visual comparisons in his arguments, even though it's clear that he very much enjoys doing both of these things. George Orwell would argue that this is a sign of a disordered mind or a lousy argument. I am betting that Freidman's just a writer whose arguments are better than his metaphors. "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is, despite its faults, recommended to those who want to know what to say the next time the G-word comes up in conversation.
    • 4/5
      Friedman does take the "big picture" of globalization and brings it down to the small conclaves of Africa and other lower levels of the economic system. Perhaps this is most interesting as a book for periodic rereading to trace how globalization is proceeding and Friedman admits it is not standing still. Writing the month of the World Cup in South Africa it is instructive to check out his personal experience in India when a former shoe shine boy in 1998 has 27 channels from 6 different countries illegally accessed at his house (where his wife is learning English from the TV). Friedman, himself a part of the information business, focuses on the democratization of information, not just the spread of goods and capital. In the last 12 years how information exchange has exploded with more to come.
    • 2/5
      A generalist's take on globalization. The books starts off with some interesting anecdotes and discussions. But it goes and on rambling about the same thing. Another downside is that Friedman assume s the reader to be so dumb that some of his descriptions sounds too childish. A big minus of the book is that, apart from being US-centric the book is like a piece of propagandist pamphlet. It shies away from many issues raised by the opponents of Globalization. For example there is almost no discussion on asymmetries in trade.
    • 3/5
      Let's extrapolate global events from personal anecdotes!
    • 4/5
      Written by a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, the author explores how globalization is changing the world.
    • 5/5
      Combined with The World is Flat, this is a must read for understanding globalization.
    • 4/5
      All the is good about globalism and its inevitability is praised by Fredman. A good read even if you don't agree entirely with his outlook.
    • 1/5
      This man loves his metaphors a little too much.