On a modern-day passage to India, Thomas L. Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, found himself chatting in Bangalore with a young, slight, mustachioed videogame-company CEO named Rajesh Rao. "India is going to be a superpower," Rao said, gushing about a new economic era that makes the globe into one massive marketplace, "and we are going to rule." But rule whom? Friedman asked. Rao laughed. "It's not about ruling anybody," he admitted. "That's the point. There is nobody to rule anymore."
Rao's enthusiasm about the changing rules of international commerce and politics today -- about whether there's anything left to rule in a brave new world of globalization -- underscores the virtues and vices of Friedman's captivating and sometimes frustrating new book. 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......
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