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Summary: A wonderfully balanced, yet profound, perspective on 9/11.
Review: The best investment in time and intellect that anyone who truly cares about the genesis of 9/11, and where we -- and the world -- go from here could possibly make. He is an incredibly profound and influential writer, yet his style and tone are wonderfully accessible to all. Encourages independent thinking rather than promoting favored ideological perspectives.
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Summary: Send it to your friends abroad!!
Review: That's exactly what I'm doing. This book does a great job of trying to explain the position of the US in the world since 9/11. This is my first encounter with Mr Friedman's work and I was not disappointed. The book does a great job of addressing the fact that the US seems to have become a target of hate in today's world. It is amazing how accurately he pinpoints the sentiments shared by non americans regarding our country. An eye opener.
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Summary: Understanding the Global Chessboard Pre and Post 9/11
Review: A collection of his NY Times articles pre 9/11 and then post 9/11, and then the balance of the book is notes on his travels while putting these articles together. Even having read many of the articles, reading the book beginning to end, one gets a context of what the world was like leading up to this and how it shook out from 9/11 on. Plus, his notes do a good job of providing color on the perspectives of leadership from where he is writing at a given point (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, etc.)
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Summary: Longitude, Attitude, & What The Mainstream Media Misses
Review: This latest by Tom Friedman offers a more in-depth alternative to the electronic (T.V.) and mainstream print (newspaper) media. He compiled 2 years of his columns in chronological order. He also includes his diary revealing his insights and perceptions into the aftermath of the attacks in 2001. With "Longitudes and Attitudes," we can go over information he presents, investigate into these topics further, agree or refute with certain perspectives of his, then come to our own individualistic conclusions. He included some very significant interviews from many influential people in the Middle East, in addition to traveling, note-taking, cultural observations, and discussions with every-day people. The opportunity to analyze information and engage in our own thought process is possible with this book and this is what's lacking from the mainstream press (which Friedman is apart of, being a columnist for the "New York Times.") Although a few perceive liberal bias from him, I perceive balance, albeit with some journalistic and personal eccentricity, which we all have within us. When it comes to September 2001, and the Iraq situation 2002-3, the mainstream media have bombarded the American public with intellectually shallow sound-bites, histrionics, haute couture Iraq topics, irrelevant speculation, charades of patriotism, the perpetuation of myths, incorrect public statements, false reports, ivory tower "experts," and retired military pundits who co-habitate with a T.V. clicker and speculate on the many talk shows, "yelling programs," and "spin shows," ranging from left, middle, to right. With "Longitudes and attitudes" you can, on this rare occasion, think, rationalize, and decide for yourself Friedman is a thinker and by reading this, an American can be provoked to think for themselves, instead of having the spin doctors from far left to right do that for them. Friedman's classic book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" is worth taking a look at. It's relevant today.
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Summary: From New York to ...???...
Review: This is journalism; not parachute journalism, but not scholarship either, Friedman is a seasoned observer of the Middle Eastern scene, having written a bestseller about the region, From Beirut to Jerusalem. Friedman opens with a column denouncing the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, and then asking his readers to grant it legitimacy anyway. With this potshot out of the way, he thereafter treats the Bush administration's handling of the war fairly enough. There's a bit more liberal linkage than I personally care for (if liberal hobbyhorse X is slighted, then the terrorists will have won!). He deplores the U.S.'s failure to ratify the Kyoto treaty, seeming to take its provisions and the good faith of its signatories entirely at face value. Plus, he sounds shocked, utterly and repeatedly, at the actions of the Palestinian suicide brigades, while simultaneously demanding that Israel make yet more concessions to them. Don't they know they are endangering the peace process?! Well, that's the crude calculus at work in a jihad. But on the whole his observations are fair and his questions incisive. In one column, an Egyptian journalist asks him to describe the impact of the WTC's destruction. Friedman replies that it is as if the Pyramids had been destroyed, along with thousands of people inside. Therein he unknowingly brushes against one of the features of America's islamofascist enemy. The most radical of the muslim fundamentalists, arab or otherwise, have no respect for pagan antiquities. The ruins are merely of instructional value, to show what befalls those who reject the One True Faith. I read one book in which one such person wished to destroy the ancient Egyptian heritage, and 'Allah would provide' to make up for the lost tourism revenues. Such people also don't worry much about any collateral damage the jihadis may cause. If an inadvertent Muslim victim was a good person, he will go to Paradise; if not, not. Disbelievers are damned in any case, so who cares. So, while such a mindset is thankfully not (yet) mainstream in Egypt, it should be understood that there is nothing quite like the World Trade Center in the Arab world, in structure or in spirit. New York Times editorial page editor Howell Raines has sparked an online cottage industry, remarking on how he has deployed his page's influence to block further action against America's enemies. Friedman thanks Raines profusely in the acknowledgements. I'd be interested in how strictly Raines kept him 'on message' regarding war with Iraq, or if Raines had to at all. Sometimes he forgets that President Bush is a leader, not a fellow columnist. Friedman frequently puts words in his mouth, or scores him for things left unsaid, plainly trying to hide his contempt for the _simplisme_ cowboy President. That's no big shock, of course; it is the major pastime of national commentators. But does he really think that, in a summer 2002 speech, Bush refrained from calling for the reform of all arab governments simply from a lack of courage? There's a war to win, remember. Or does Friedman prefer that we go it alone? He ends with a travelogue, detailing his adventures from 9/11 through mid-summer of the following year. He includes his observations of blond female soldiers guarding captured Taliban prisoners at Bagram airbase, a professional Saudi woman having to wait to deplane in Jidda until someone brings her veil from home, and etc. It makes interesting reading, the most polished narrative in the book. He expresses the strong desire to see how the whole story ends. The reader could be in worse hands than Friedman's when the time comes to report it.
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Summary: An Inside Look At The Current World Situation
Review: This book offers some of the best insights into the current situation between the United States and the War on Terrorism, as well as the mounting crisis with Iraq. What makes this book so valuable, however, is that Friedman offers solutions, albeit they're his ideas (but that is more than many people are doing these days). Nonetheless, his view is refreshing and a good break from all of the rhetoric of CNN and FOX news. The columns in the first half of the book are good, but begin to become repetative towards the end of the first half. But the "Diaries" section of the book is full of some great stories and reads more personally than his 740 word columns. This book has helped me better understand the world we live in, which I am thankful for. Because like Friedman, I too, want to see how this story really ends.
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Summary: Mr. Friedman is a liberal spin artist.
Review: This book is a grossly liberal spin on Friedman's view of the world with one contradiction after another. Mr. Friedman's glaring short-coming as a writer is that he is overly tunnel-visioned on the mid-east while he writes about the rest of the world. His entire perspective on the world seems to pass through the prism of Israel. Unfortunately he writes with a grossly liberal bias that takes away from the quality of his book. My money is always better spent when I avoid the narrow-minded overly liberal or overly conservative writers.
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Summary: Friedman is a little off his rocker here...
Review: To those who have read the reviews of teenlibrarian, I direct your attention here, as the old reviews will be posted (this is an old review) along with the new ones. And now, to Mr. Friedman's work Longitudes and Attitudes. ------------ When a journalist writes, they ought to write objectively, with facts and not rhetoric. Unfortunately, Friedman and his contemporaries do not write as true journalists ought to. I understand that Friedman's column is listed in the Op-Ed section of the Times, but his one-sided view is disgusting. For example, he attacks the Vice President for "hiding out" in the weeks after 9/11. So much for safety and security and continuity of government. I don't hear Friedman railing against the one Cabinet member who obliging sits out the annual State of the Union address. Friedman also suggests, by way of the title of this work, that he is writing about the "world" after September 11th. For my part, I don't see any articles written from Australia, France or Colombia. Friedman explores the Middle East after September 11th, not the world. I had some serious issues with this book, but Friedman does make some good points. (It also concerns me that Friedman, who does not work for the government, has the number of the "Operations" Room of the White House memorized.)
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Summary: If we had all read Friedman before 9/11 maybe ...
Review: No crystal ball was required to predict that bin Laden & Co. would launch a massive attack on America, the evidence was all there and Friedman had been presenting it in the Times. We just weren't paying atention when al Quaeda blew up American Embassies and announced its intention to do worse. To understand just how powerful the urge to jihad is in the Muslim world, read Friedman. Then, for further reading suggestions, try the essay "Reading About Islam" by Diana Muir in the Boox Review. ...
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Summary: Repeats himself, however much of the content is worth it
Review: The author repeats himself and god forbid you loose your place you might have to start at the begining since after a couple of the collums they all sound the same. However, there are some very good ideas and some of the content is worth repeating.
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