That used to be us

• By Thomas L Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum
• Little, Brown
• RRP $39.99
Pulitzer Prize-winning Tom Friedman (the man behind The World is Flat) collaborates with foreign policy university professor Michael Mandelbaum to reflect on what has gone wrong in America, and what changes are needed to rediscover its power and prowess.
The end result is stimulating challenge for lateral thinkers here in New Zealand to apply their analysis to our own situation.
The authors posit that there are four major challenges – how to adapt to globalisation, to adjust to the information technology revolution, to cope with chronic budget deficits, and how to address rising energy consumption and climate threats. They describe how America reached this situation, then address three areas that have led to the problems – education, maths and physics (the intersection of energy and climate), and politics.
Written in highly-readable style, That used to be us: what went wrong with America – and how it can come back suggests that America is in the equivalent of the ‘terrible twos’ development stage; that 9/11 was diabetes, not cancer; and that picture drawn of America today could be represented by rocket with leaky booster.
The material draws widely from both authors’ global experiences, interviews, books and articles. Back in 2005, when Friedman released The World is Flat, Facebook, Twitter, 3G and Skype were still to be conceived. Now, Flat World 2.0 with its hyper-connectivity is changing the way that information is shared and the way we do business. This change has occurred in short period and the challenge is how we adapt.
While this book looks at the major changes facing America today, these are not America’s challenges alone. There must be opportunities for New Zealand too. Read and see the possibilities.