Friedman has unequalled access to the people and situations that currently drive history.., he brings home the speed, closeness,complexity and deep mutual engagement of the world economy by relating in detail a plethora of truly amazing facts about how it works ...

Thomas Friedman's international bestseller is the most up-to-date and exciting view yet of today's new era of globalization. In this expanded edition, published for the first time in paperback, he draws on his travels to India, China and the Middle East, and on the explosion of technologies including blogging, online encyclopedias and podcasting, to show how knowledge and resources are connecting all over the planet as never before. This 'flattening' of the world, he argues, can be a force for good - for business, the environment and people everywhere.

Introduction to the Updated and Expanded Edition / ix

How the Worm Became Flat

One: While I Was Sleeping / 3

Two: The Ten Forces That Flattened the World / 50

Flattener #1.11/9/89

Flattener #2.8/9/95

Flattener #3. Work Flow Software

Flattener #4. Uploading

Flattener #5. Outsourcing

Flattener #6. Offshoring          

Flattener #7. Supply-Chaining

Flattener #8. Insourcing

Flattener #9. In-forming

Flattener #10. The Steroids

Three: The Triple Convergence / 201

Four: The Great Sorting Out / 234

America and the Flat World

Five: America and Free Trade / 261

Six: The Untouchables / 276

Seven: The Right Stuff / 301

Eight: The Quiet Crisis / 323

Nine: This Is Not a Test / 360

Developing Countries and the Flat World

Ten: The Virgin ofGuadalupe / 393

Companies and the Flat World

Eleven: How Companies Cope / 425

Geopolitics and the Flat World

Twelve: The Unflat World / 457

Thirteen: Globalization of the Local / 505

Fourteen: The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention / 515

Conclusion: Imagination

Fifteen: 11/9 Versus 9/11 / 543

Acknowledgments / 567

Index / 571