Okay, in my attempt at setting the record for the longest consecutive streak of books started and bailed on, I just gave up on The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas L. Friedman, about halfway through. (By the way, if you get credit for the number of pages in the books you bail on, I’m sure bailing on Atlas Shrugged clinched the title for me.) Anyway, since I’m sure you all miss me, I thought I’d post on this one anyway just so’s I can write something. [more after the jump]

While I give Friedman credit for pointing out an interesting insight, I penalize him heavily for doing so in such a dragged-out manner. This book is not “Brief” in any respect. For those of you who haven’t read this one or aren’t otherwise familiar with it, Friedman takes a neat little metaphorical statement and beats the hell out of it for way too long. See, his main point is that the level of access to information and the ability for people all around the world to connect to one another is evening out because of advances in technology (including the very technology that is allowing me to convey this information to you). He likens this “evening out” or leveling of the playing field to “flattening”. And he starts the book with a recounting of a trip to India to study outsourcing. Get it? Like Columbus tried to go to India and ended up proving the world was round, Friedman uses his trip to India to prove that the world is “flat”. A mixed metaphor, and wrongly applied, if you think about it (see, if the world was actually flat, it would be more difficult for people in opposite corners of the world to connect to one another, or at least to deliver goods and services to one another, whereas when the world is round, the distance between any two people is always going to be at least as short if not shorter).

Anyway, the point is the point, and in retrospect, it seems so obvious that I can’t believe Friedman was the first to point it out (and perhaps he wasn’t, but I don’t feel like researching it). But Friedman belabors the point by (in addition to beating the hell out of his metaphor and trying to force his ideas into line with it) trying to come up with his own list of “flatteners” and “convergences” that have leveled the playing field. And I guess that’s what writers get paid to do — to take things and make them their own. But I think I learned everything he wanted to tell me in the first half of this book. Thank you, Internet. [read Nitro’s thoughts on the book for another opinion- ed].