I only got through half of Thomas Friedman's book, "The World is Flat". What is the 2nd half about?

Question

I left off at the chapter about Google. I was really fascinated by his book and I wish that I had time to sit and read the rest of it but I am very busy and don't have time. I learned so-o-o much from the first half, I was hoping someone could fill me in on the 2nd half?

Answer 1

The second half of the book is about the details of how commerce will move to places like China and places like India and how there is very little that could ever be done to stop it. He wrote at length on certain examples of how those countries are adapting, very quickly, to what can be outsourced to them. They are also trying to expand into every market they can. My favorite example was one with a McDonald's that was outsourcing the order taking in the drive-through to a place in Bangalore. Someone sitting at a computer over in India was taking the order and sending it back to the computers in the McDonald's. It cut the errors in half and decreased the need for one employee (and really creeped me out).

What I do when I'm overly busy is to buy books on CD and listen to them in the car or at the gym on my iPod. I actually bought the World is Flat on audio and finished it over the course of a couple of weeks. The reader is excellent and the whole collection only cost about $20.

Let me know if you have any other questions about the book!

Answer 2

Here's what Publisher's Weekly said about it:
"the last 100 pages on the economic and political roots of global Islamism are filled with the kind of close reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by. Add in Friedman's winning first-person interjections and masterful use of strategic wonksterisms, and this book should end up on the front seats of quite a few Lexuses and SUVs of all stripes."
Take a look at the 811 reviews posted on amazon.com for more ideas about the content.