Friedman's book is about 1/3 too long, in large part because he has this ingrating desire to be the first to coin a new term, to tag and bag the changes in world politics and so (with dreams of historical recognition beckoning) creates many new words, subverts words "the green peril" even time periods like "ECE" or Energy Climate Era.
I can understand the desire to be the one who coins the new term, that offers certain power in how the topic is defined (climate change and global warming being two obvious, non-value-netural recent terms). But for all the benefits of the book, in examining how his conclusions from his last book The World Is Flat will be save or doom the effort to fix the climate, its hard to take it seriously when theres so much excess "look at me" effort spattered throughout what is supposed to be a serious book by a serious thinker. His style has always had a journalistic, folksy style, and thats a good thing, it makes the world is flat and the lexus and the olive tree very readable. And whilst he created dozens of terms in both those books, placing them along side hundreads of little anacdotes, this time the forumla feels forced and clumsy. You can let your eyes blur and wander down the page regularly whilst reading and usually never miss a single important point.
Borrow a copy off a friend, its readable, and for those like me who arn't particularly interested in climate change, but recognise its importance it offers some good insights and facts. But instead of being fun, his general style and desire to be 'the one' to tag and identify everything first ends up making the book a bit of a slog.
(Ohh yeah, and why does the UK/Australian cover feature a particularly lush and green earth ? Not all environmental books need to be green.
3 comments:
That cover is really bland. The US cover is much better, what with it's unusual, not-quite-placeable garden of earthly delights themed painting. Still, neither cover is brilliant, and Friedman has always struck me—from an outside perspective only, as I've never read his work—as an author who's work is talked about just a little too much to be worth confronting his ideas directly if at all. Sort of like Dan Brown, I guess. With that many people reading, the bulk of anything interesting is likely to build up elsewhere in the cultural climate without me having to actually go and read his stuff.
Also, your spelling, which in your first page worth of posts was quite solid, is starting to slip.
Do you really think he's just out to coin new phrases? Surely given the content it could be argued he's using these phrases in an attempt to better illustrate his point and make it more accessible?
I'm about to start reading this (just arrived today) so I will have to get back to you. After hearing him speak at MIT (on iTunes), I was impressed and I'm interested to hear his views on climate change in more detail.
"an attempt to better illustrate his point and make it more accessible?"
That may have been the original intention, and is his talent, but whilst it works for the claim "the world is flat" to simplify the ideas of globalisation, economic & technological convergance, reduced geographic and regulatory barriers etc, ie 'flat', he uses and drops new terms in the latest books without much regard, and they dont tend to simplify too much either.
But certainly keen to hear your thoughts on the subject.
Ohh and Gaps - The spelling is the peril of using Google Chrome. It's spell checker seems broken for me. But thanks for heads up, must try and do better.
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