Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Not all journalists are great book authors, but the award winning journalist Thomas Friedman is an exception. This book is a superb introduction to globalisation in our world today. You really cannot understand the 21st century without it. He divides globalisation into 3 phases: 1.0 up to 1800 when things depended on states 2.0 when it was multinational corporations 1800-2000 and then 3.0 since 2000 when it has been up to brilliant individuals. Over 400,000 Americans, he reminds us, will have their taxes sorted out in Bangalore, and in Britain we are phoned every few minutes by outsourced call centers in the same city. We truly do live in a global world, and Friedman briliantly shows us how. For my money, pp 391-406 on Al Qaeda, whom Friedman so aptly calls Islamo-Leninists, is worth the whole price of the book for its outstanding analysis of the real causes of terrorism today. Buy it! Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ, Carroll and Graf, 2004)