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Library Faculty Recommendations
by Sandra Yaegle, Head of Public Services

The World is Flat

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, is about the effects of globalization on us and our world—economic, political, geographical, and personal. The author presents complex issues in a highly readable style that is easy for a non-specialist to follow. He uses the metaphor of a flat world to portray what he sees as the next phase of globalization. Friedman identifies ten economic and technological factors that have combined since about 2000 to “flatten-out” the world. He includes interviews that he conducted with several people in developing parts of the world such as India and China to show that they now have ways open to them to compete in the global market place like never before. He illustrates how these forces are already beginning to affect us now and how their full impact will hit in the next decade or so. He thinks many of us are unprepared, and this book is his wake-up call.

I was especially interested in what Friedman had to say about education. Friedman makes a case for the urgent need for education reform in his chapter “This is Not a Test.” He calls for an “all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred, no-budget-too-large crash program for science and engineering education.” He also advocates making community college affordable for everyone and chides parents for not doing a better job of ensuring that their children’s education is preparing them for the jobs of the future. In one vignette that illustrates the changing realities of much of the developing world, Friedman writes, “When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner—people in China are starving.’ But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ‘Girls, finish your homework—people in China and India are starving for your jobs.’” Friedman also stresses the need of education to nurture both sides of the brain.

The World is Flat is controversial. Some reviewers criticize him for not going far enough in addressing education reform. Other reviewers fault the book for what they see as technological determinism. An idea running through Friedman’s book is that there are two forces that are jockeying for political and economic control in the world today—globalization and nationalism. The reader who finishes The World is Flat will better be able to discern these two forces at work in many of the events shaping the world today.

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Collection Spotlight-- Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses by Theodore Dalrymple
Reviewed by Sam Reese, Circulation Graduate Assistant

Why should the British have become such total and shameless vulgarians in a matter of three or four decades? ...Like so many modern ills, the coarseness of spirit and behavior grows out of ideas brewed up in the academy—ideas that have seeped outward and are now having their practical effect on the rest of society.*

Contrary to what the subtitle may suggest, this is not a guidebook on implementing small oranges into the Catholic liturgy. It is a collection of short articles on various aspects of contemporary culture, especially in the literary and socio-political spheres. Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name for the English essayist Anthony Daniels, who also publishes under his real name. In Our Culture, What’s Left of It, Dalrymple uses his keen intellect and amazing ability to dissect political correctness with seriousness and irony. The author discusses topics ranging from the origin of evil to the idiocy of legalizing drugs; from why Shakespeare is the highest form of art and is needed for a civil society, to why a pothead art-school dropout slinging paint on a canvas is neither. Dalrymple writes in the spirit of C.S. Lewis, fusing common sense with an extensive vocabulary and a matter-of-factness that makes it difficult for those who disagree with him to remember why they do so. Each essay in this book is well-written and Dalrymple leaves no question about what his convictions are. He speaks of literature with as much authority as he speaks of the evils of the welfare system, about which his experience as a prison doctor and psychiatrist provided him with extensive experience.

Perhaps the two best essays in this collection are “The Frivolity of Evil” and “Don’t Legalize Drugs.” The first speaks of how evil permeates society primarily because we allow it to—that it is more our unwillingness to shun evil that allows it to exist than anything else. The second one speaks about…well, if you can’t figure it out from the title, perhaps Dalrymple is not for you. Dalrymple writes that the view that we are losing the war on drugs and should therefore legalize them is ludicrous. The same argument can be used for legalizing anything, from murder and rape to allowing people to marry their Chia pets.

Writing recently for City Journal, Dalrymple confesses to himself not being a believer, but then proceeds to eviscerate “the sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none, combined with adolescent shrillness and intolerance” of the new professional atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, et al.). He then demonstrates how faith lies at the heart of what is most beautiful in Western civilization. Considering Dutch still-life painting, Dalrymple writes “only a deep reverence, an ability not to take existence for granted, could turn a representation of a herring on a pewter plate into an object of transcendent beauty, worthy of serious reflection.”

You may not agree with Dalrymple’s views, and he may even infuriate you at times, but not even his detractors can argue with his logic. Dalrymple is a breath of fresh air in a society in which everyone thinks their viewpoint is valid simply because they hold it. Read him. Think about what he says. Love him or hate him, he will change the way you think.

Oh, and be forewarned: Dalrymple uses some big words. You might need a dictionary.

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