Over 94 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list!

The groundbreaking new book, an international best-seller in hardcover with over 80,000 copies sold in Canada alone, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree and From Beirut to Jerusalem.

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 and the Iraq War? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations and giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?

In his brilliant new book, a best-seller with almost 2,000,000 copies in print since being first published in hardcover in North America in spring 2005, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman demystifies this brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman 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; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is a timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

Winner of the inaugural "Financial Times" Goldman Sachs Business book the of the year award. The award, which honors one book from the past year that provides the "most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues." The prize: $54,000.

Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times, where he serves as the foreign affairs columnist. He is the author of three bestselling books: From Beirut to Jerusalem (FSG, 1989), winner of the National Book Award for non-fiction and still considered the definitive work on the Middle East; The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (FSG, 1999); and Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (FSG, 2002). He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family.