The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century

Author: (American) Thomas Friedman
Publisher:
Publish Date: Not Available
Features: Your Highness, as a devout Catholic, you love and are eager to spread our sacred faith, and you firmly oppose idolatry and other heresies. Therefore, you have decided to send me—Christopher Columbus—to the states of India to meet the princes and people there, to experience their mountains, rivers, culture, customs, and folk traditions, in order to find the appropriate way to lead them to embrace our sacred faith. You have also instructed me not to reach the East by the usual land route, but to choose a westward route that no one has yet taken. —Excerpt from Christopher Columbus's 1492
No one has ever given me directions on a golf course like this: "Aim for Microsoft or IBM." I am standing at the tee box of the KGA Golf Course in the center of Bangalore, southern India. My partner told me to aim for Microsoft or IBM, and he was referring to the two brilliant glass-steel buildings far beyond the next hole. At the time, the Goldman Sachs building was not yet completed, otherwise he would surely have used it as a landmark to direct me. The office buildings of HP and Texas Instruments are in the direction of the back nine holes, and in the direction of the tenth hole.
There's more than just that. The scorekeeper at the tee box is from Epson, and one of our caddies is wearing a hat from 3M in the United States. The traffic signs outside the course are sponsored by Texas Instruments, and the roadside Pizza Hut billboard features a steaming hot pizza with the headline: "Absolutely Delicious!"
This is not Kansas in the United States, but it doesn't quite feel like India either. Is this the New World, the Old World, or the next world?
I came to India's "Silicon Valley"—Bangalore—in the same way as Columbus on his expedition. To find a shortcut to India, Columbus did not, like the Portuguese explorers of his time, sail southeast around Africa, but instead led his Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria westward across the Atlantic, through an unknown sea, and finally reached the islands he believed to be the East Indies. At that time, India and the Spice Islands were renowned for their gold, pearls, jewels, and silk, and they possessed an unbelievable wealth. The Islamic countries at the time had blocked land routes to India, and if a sea shortcut could be found, it would undoubtedly allow Columbus and his Spanish sponsors to quickly accumulate wealth and power.
Columbus clearly believed the Earth was round when he set sail, so he was certain that sailing west could reach India. However, he miscalculated the distance—he thought the Earth was much smaller. He also did not expect to encounter a vast landmass before reaching the East Indies. He called the indigenous people he met in the New World "Indians." But even if he did not reach the true India, he could still tell the Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who supported him that he had proven "the Earth is indeed round."
To reach India, I left the United States and flew eastward via Frankfurt. Sitting in the business class of Lufthansa, a screen that popped out from the armrest displayed a GPS map that allowed me to