The World is Not Flat: The New Economics

In a new book, The Venturesome Economy Amar Bhidé challenges  The World is Flat notion
proposed by Thomas Friedman in his book of that name.  Bhidé concludes that:

a.) the world is not flat and

b.) that the people he calls the  “techno-nationalists”— have got it wrong.

(At the very least we could agree that the world is spiky)

Read more. This short piece ends with some provocative questions about the kind of innovation that matters and how to promote it.

Bhidé concludes that the competitive innovation edge comes from the kind of entrepreneurial behavior that “adapts and combines high-level ideas and know-how, adjusts them to the needs of particular markets, and actually sells them to willing buyers.”

To read more:

Amar Bhidé, The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).

Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006)

Now – if the idea was that of a flat earth…well surely, that is a matter of common sense.