I do not normally not finish books, I guess it is a form of OCD or wishful thinking. I always think I am going to miss something or the good part of the book starts the very next page from where I quit and I need to give the author just one more chance. But then again it is I who is looking for entertainment and education thus perhaps I need to honker down and finish reading and quit expecting the author to entertain me and make things easy. However, whatever may be the case I have decided to stop reading The World is Flat. The following is my review of what little of the book I did read, and dear reader you are welcome to stop reading my review prematurely just like I had stopped reading the book.
First of all, I would like to state that when I read books I view them as a research paper that sets out to prove some point to me. It is the job of the author to make sure that I believe his argument and take his side, or at the very least accept that his points are valid and argument is structurally sound. What I found in Freidman’s book, all too often, was the mention of how many other people agree with his argument. Personally I do not care if the rest of the world agrees with the author it is his job to tell me why I should believe along with the rest of the world.
Second, I find that there is very little room in an argumentative book for personal prose. I see it as perhaps a necessity when making connections between the chapters, or points but in no way should it be the main portion of the book. Just as I do not care about how many of the author’s personal friends agree with his opinion I do not care whether or not the flight that he took for his next interview was in first class or coach, and how many times he called his wife during the trip.
Third, personally it seemed to me that the book had accumulated water weight during its many revisions. I have only read the very beginning of the 600+ pages but the fact that those first 30 pages could have been condensed into 5 killed all desire to continue reading. Yes sir I understand that the internet shrunk the world, but do I really need to know about the different types of browsers and languages and startup companies in order to understand your argument that the world is shrinking? I do not think so. Walking away from this book I do not want to know more about the internet than a computer science graduate, I want to walk away believing that, in fact, the world shrunk.
Finally, while I do agree with the idea of the shrinking world, I have issues with the opinion of the author that the shrinking is good for everyone, and that you better learn to adapt or be left in the dust. Is it really good that US jobs are shipped overseas? Sure it’s cheap and it increases productivity of the doctors and tax accountants and hedge fund managers, but what about those who did not have access to top notch education? What about those who are just not as smart as doctors or nuclear physicists? What about those who would be perfectly happy with a middle class job of being an assistant or a secretary? Yes the world is shrinking, but I would not be so hasty in deeming it a good thing.
