Scratch Beginnings or The World Is Flat Updated and Expanded

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream

Author: Adam W Shepard

IS the American Dream still alive or has it, in fact, been drowned out by a clashing of the classes? Is the upper class destined to rule forever while the lower classes are forced to live in the same cyclical misery?

Millions of Americans fight for the answers to these questions every day, and here, in Scratch Beginnings, one man makes the attempt at discovering the answers for himself. Carrying only a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 cash, and restricted from using previous contacts or his education, Adam Shepard sets out for a randomly selected city with one goal on his mind: work his way out of the realities of homelessness and into a life that will offer him the opportunity for success.

Scratch Beginnings is Shepard's response to the now-famous books Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, where Barbara Ehrenreich has written on the hopeless pursuit of the American Dream. This book offers his observation of what it is like for so many people on the lower end of the spectrum, the crappy end of the stick. In this poignant account, Shepard goes on a search for the vitality of the American Dream, and, in turn, discovers so much more.

Scratch Beginnings is unquestionably one of the most engaging works of the social science genre. No matter your reading interest, Shepard's facile writing style is sure to keep you turning the pages.

Interesting textbook: Natural Beauty Recipe Book or Food Politics

The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Author: Thomas L Friedman

This new edition of The World Is Flat is Thomas L. Friedman's account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before-creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place.

This updated and expanded edition features more than a hundred pages of fresh reporting and commentary, drawn from Friedman's travels around the world and across the American heartland--from anyplace where the flattening of the world is being felt.

In The World Is Flat, Friedman at once shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive" (Robert Wright, Slate) and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, he explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; how governments and societies can, and must, adapt; and why terrorists want to stand in the way.

More than ever, The World Is Flat is an essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

The New York Times - Fareed Zakaria

Terrorism remains a threat, and we will all continue to be fascinated by upheavals in Lebanon, events in Iran and reforms in Egypt. But ultimately these trends are unlikely to shape the world's future. The countries of the Middle East have been losers in the age of globalization, out of step in an age of free markets, free trade and democratic politics. The world's future -- the big picture -- is more likely to be shaped by the winners of this era. And if the United States thought it was difficult to deal with the losers, the winners present an even thornier set of challenges. This is the implication of the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman's excellent new book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.

The Washington Post - Warren Bass

The World Is Flat continues the franchise Friedman has made for himself as a great explicator of and cheerleader for globalization, building upon his 1999 The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Like its predecessor, this book showcases Friedman's gift for lucid dissections of abstruse economic phenomena, his teacher's head, his preacher's heart, his genius for trend-spotting and his sometimes maddening inability to take himself out of the frame. It also shares some of the earlier volume's excitement (mirroring Rajesh Rao's) and hesitations about whether we're still living in an era dominated by old-fashioned states or in a postmodern, globalized era where states matter far less and the principal engine of change is a leveled playing field for international trade.

Publishers Weekly

With the rise of technologies like high-speed Internet and the knocking down of barriers both literal (the Berlin Wall) and figurative (the opening of China's economy to free trade) portions of this audiobook could have been outsourced to recording studios all across the globe. As Friedman notes in this lengthy but informative audio, new technologies, political paradigm shifts and, more importantly, innovative individuals at the helms of startups have leveled the playing field in the global economy. That this audio wasn't outsourced is fortunate for listeners, as Wyman is a veteran nonfiction narrator with an extensive background in voicing animation. Upon first listen, one cannot help thinking of the exuberant heroes of Saturday morning cartoons; once listeners grow accustomed to Wyman's youthful tenor, his professionalism and talent shine through. Though Wyman's voice doesn't have the professorial gravitas to match a journalistic work such as this, listeners should have no reservations about choosing this engrossing audio for long-distance travel or simply casual listening. Simultaneous release with the Farrar, Straus & Giroux hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 28). (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

Lively and provocative as always, Friedman returns with an updated thesis on globalization. In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman argued that technological innovation, foreign investment, capital flows, and trade were transforming the world — breaking down national borders, constraining governments, and triggering grand struggles between nationalism and the forces of economic integration. Here he argues — in a swirl of anecdotes about software designers, intrepid entrepreneurs, globetrotting investors, and the famous telephone call centers in Bangalore, India — that globalization has reached a new stage. Now individuals, rather than governments or corporations, are the agents of change, empowered by e-mail, computers, teleconferencing, and production networks, all of which are drawing more and more people around the world into competition and cooperation on an equal footing. In this sense, Friedman argues, the world is becoming flat, and his book is organized as a sort of travel guide to globalization, a kinetic portrait of the wired global village. The rest of the book examines how countries, companies, and workers will need to adapt to flatness. For the United States, this entails, above all, investing in education, technology, and training.

But Friedman's image of a flat earth is profoundly misleading — a view of the world from a seat in business class. Flatness is another way of describing the transnational search by companies for cheap labor, an image that misses the pervasiveness of global inequality and the fact that much of the developing world remains mired in poverty and misery. It also misses the importance of the global geopolitical hierarchy, whichguarantees the provision of stability, property rights, and other international public goods. The rise of China and India is less about flatness than it is about dramatic upheavals in the mountains and valleys of the global geopolitical map.

Library Journal

Look around: this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist claims that the most significant events of the 21st century are happening now. The globe is "flattening," with technology binding more and more countries together. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-This brilliantly paced, articulate, and accessible explanation of today's world is an ideal title for tech-savvy teens. Friedman's thesis is that connectedness by computer is leveling the playing field, giving individuals the ability to collaborate and compete in real time on a global scale. While the author is optimistic about the future, seeing progress in every field from architecture to zoology, he is aware that terrorists are also using computers to attack the very trends that make progress plausible and reasonable. This is a smart and essential read for those who will be expected to live and work in this new global environment.-Alan Gropman, National Defense University, Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Of globalism and its contented. New York Times columnist Friedman (Longitudes and Attitudes, 2002, etc.), always glad to find possibilities for hope in the most tangled international trends, offers a mantra to accompany the outsourcing of jobs in the brave new transnational capitalist world: "The playing field is being leveled. . . . The playing field is being leveled." The phrase is that of a Bangalore-based captain of industry; Friedman's gloss, which seems merely rhetorical at first but turns out to have some legs, is: "the world is flat." Which is to say: new communications technologies and business strategies have erased certain obstacles between nations and peoples in at least the realms of knowledge work and intellectual capital. India, for instance, graduates huge numbers of accountants each year who can readily be put to work doing the grunt labor of preparing Americans' tax returns, leaving it to the erstwhile U.S. preparer to do something wonderful and meaningful with his or her time-estate planning, say, or portfolio management. Friedman is sober-minded enough to recognize, of course, that not all homegrown preparers are Warren Buffetts in the making, and that some people will not thrive when their jobs wander across the oceans-though some may wind up in the Colorado phone bank that, Friedman seems most impressed to learn, processes drive-through orders for a McDonald's franchise two states away. He is also quick to remark that the freer flow of information from developed to developing nation is a boon not just for the talented of the Third World, but also for the likes of certain bad guys: "Globalization in general," he writes, "has been al-Qaeda's friend in that it hashelped to solidify a revival of Muslim identity and solidarity . . . thanks to the Internet and satellite television."But Friedman is generally enthusiastic about world-changing trends such as just-in-time inventorying, supply-chaining and insourcing. Those who look forward to a planet of Wal-Marts and Dells will be charmed. Those who don't-well, welcome to the flat world. Author tour

Table of Contents:

1	While I was sleeping	3
2	The ten forces that flattened the world	48
	Flattener #1. 11/9/89
	Flattener #2. 8/9/95
	Flattener #3. Work flow software
	Flattener #4. Open-sourcing
	Flattener #5. Outsourcing
	Flattener #6. Offshoring
	Flattener #7. Supply-chaining
	Flattener #8. Insourcing
	Flattener #9. In-forming
	Flattener #10. The steroids
3	The triple convergence	173
4	The great sorting out	201
5	America and free trade	225
6	The untouchables	237
7	The quiet crisis	250
8	This is not a test	276
9	The Virgin of Guadalupe	309
10	How companies cope	339
11	The unflat world	371
12	The Dell theory of conflict prevention	414
13	11/9 versus 9/11	441