"I had come to Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, on my own Columbus-like journey of exploration." So writes Thomas Friedman on the second page of his latest release The World Is Flat, and from there expands a lighthearted comparative device into the basis for a weighty treatment of the present and future of the globalizing economy. "Columbus accidentally ran into America but thought he had discovered part of India. I actually found India and thought many of the people I met there were Americans ... Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife ... 'I think the world is flat.' "

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