The World is (Still) Round

This may seem like a departure from Rapid eLearning, because it is! But I ran across this brilliant critique of Tom Friedman and felt the need to share it. Below is a brief excerpt from a book review written by John Gray, professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics (not completely coincidentally, the former institution of higher learning of none other than the also brilliant and often maligned Karl Marx):

"In any longer perspective what we are witnessing today is only the most recent phase of worldwide industrialization. In the nineteenth century the world was shrunk by the advent of the telegraph; today it is shrinking again as a consequence of the Internet. Contrary to Friedman, however, the increasing facility of communication does not signify a quantum shift in human affairs. The uses of petroleum and electricity changed human life more deeply than any of the new information technologies have done. Even so, they did not end war and tyranny and usher in a new era of peace and plenty. Like other technological innovations, they were used for a variety of purposes, and became part of the normal conflicts of history."