When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now and 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?

In this brilliant best-seller, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman demystifies this brave new ‘flattened’ world for readers, explaining how it happened; what it means to countries, companies, communities and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt.