I haven’t bumped up against the TimesSelect wall since I wrote about its introduction in September 2005. However, after reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, I can understand some of the attraction of the columnists…at least Friedman himself. This exploration of globalization, sub-titled “A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” tells a forceful tale of the world we’re living in and how it’s changing.
Given its best-seller status when The World Is Flat was published in 2005, there’s little I can add to the exposition or hype at this point. But I understand why my friend Pete told me this book was a (not the) factor in his transferring to Bangalore earlier this year. Not for me at this point, but the time for burying one’s head in the sand about the future is long past.
On a specific note…we’re still at the point where globalization is accompanied by the spread of English (mostly). The future of American employees, even highly-educated ones, certainly gets murkier if the global language shifts once again (to, say, Chinese). I’m an optimist, so I don’t imagine that kind of change with fear. But I do know I’m monolingual (for all practical purposes) and I wonder if that will be tolerable when my children enter the workforce.
Thanks to my sister for the book, a birthday gift.