Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist Tackles Globalization

CONTACT: Michael Cinelli

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PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING COLUMNIST TACKLES
GLOBALIZATION
New York Times’ Friedman to Outline Themes of New Book
During Baker Institute Program

When Thomas Friedman writes,
government and business leaders around the world pay close attention.

Twice the New York Times foreign affairs columnist has earned
the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting–in 1983 while stationed in
Lebanon and in 1988 when he was based in Israel.

Ten years ago, Friedman’s book of reflections on his Middle
East experiences, “From Beirut to Jerusalem” (FSG), remained on the New York
Times bestseller list for 12 months. It won the 1989 National Book Award for
nonfiction and the 1989 Overseas Press Club Award for the best book on foreign
policy.

On May 12, Friedman will visit Rice University to talk about
his latest literary venture–a book on globalization, “The Lexus and the Olive
Tree” (FSG), which is already receiving favorable reviews from publications such
as Business Week and the New York Times Book Review.

Friedman will speak at 6 p.m. in James A. Baker III Hall. A
book signing will follow. The event is open to the public. It is sponsored by
Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

“Tom Friedman is an award-winning journalist because of his
superb analytic skills that go beyond the daily headlines,” said Baker Institute
Director Edward Djerejian. “When I was in government dealing with the press and
with Middle East issues, we had the opportunity to work together in a
professional manner which, I believe, exemplified how both the government and
the press can learn from one another. We are very happy to host Tom’s
presentation here on globalization which has been a recurring theme in the
Institute’s various programs.”

The theme of Friedman’s book and its title are captured in a
pivotal anecdote in which Friedman describes the modern day clash of the human
drive for prosperity and modernization against the pull of relationships and
community.

In 1992, Friedman visited the Lexus luxury-car factory outside
Toyota City in Japan. Some 66 humans and 310 robots were making 300 sedans a
day. Then, while riding the bullet train back to Tokyo, he read an article about
the latest furor between the Arabs and Israelis.

“It struck me then that the Lexus and the olive tree were
actually pretty good symbols of this post-Cold War era: Half the world seemed to
be emerging from the Cold War intent on building a better Lexus, dedicated to
modernizing, streamlining and privatizing their economies in order to thrive in
the system of globalization,” Friedman writes in the book. “And half the
world–sometimes half the same country, sometimes half the same person–was
still caught up in the fight over who owns the olive tree.”

Business Week contributing editor Christopher Farrell said in
his review of “The Lexus” that while Friedman “applauds the triumph of global
capitalism and the unprecedented wealth it has produced in the past decade …
he also recognizes the growing pains and human costs that globalization
creates.”

“Friedman is a card-carrying global optimist, and he excels
when analyzing how a new international system is replacing the old Cold War
system.”

Friedman graduated from Brandeis University in 1975 with a
degree in Mediterranean Studies. During his undergraduate years, he spent
semesters abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the American
University in Cairo.

He received a master’s degree in Modern Middle East Studies
from Oxford University in 1978 and immediately joined the London bureau of
United Press International.

Friedman was hired by the New York Times in 1981 as a general
assignments financial reporter specializing in OPEC and oil-related news. In
1982, he was named Beirut bureau chief, a post he took up six weeks before the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In June 1984, he became Israel bureau chief and
moved to Jerusalem.

He has also served as the paper’s chief diplomatic, White House
and international economics correspondent.

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Editors: For more information about Rice’s Baker Institute
see:

http://riceinfo.rice.edu/projects/baker/index.html.