* * *
And, as always, a special thanks to my golf partners Joel Finkelstein, Tom O’Neil, George Stevens, Jr., Jerry Tarde, and the late Alan Kotz. (Miss you, pal.) Last but not least, the amazing documentary team from Years of Living Dangerously—John Bach, David Gelber, Sydney Trattner, and John Pappas—who took me to places I never dreamt of going (and got me home).
This is my seventh book with Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of FSG, whose inspiration and support have been life-changing for me. There is nothing more that I can say. My literary agent, Esther Newberg, always in my corner, did her usual fine job handling all the details. Jonathan and Esther and I have been together now since 1988. I cannot imagine writing a book without them. My FSG editor on this project was Alex Star, who quietly but firmly brought his great touch and acute intelligence to making sure all the dots in this book both connected and shined brightly. His work improved the book with each iteration. My tireless longtime assistant, Gwenn Gorman, was always there to support this project in any way I needed—from research to scheduling. I am lucky to have had her working with me for so long. My loving sisters, Jane and Shelley, were kind enough to fact-check all the stories of our youth in St. Louis Park.
But there is no one more deserving of thanks than my brilliant wife, Ann Friedman, who edited every page, made wonderful suggestions on organization and wording, and also made everything I did better. I worked on this book over three years and broke my shoulder in the middle of it all. So Ann put up with a lot, while trying to start her own museum, Planet Word. As Alexander Hamilton says in the musical Hamilton of his own spouse, she is “best of wives and best of women.” And, of course, my daughters, Orly and Natalie, are always rooting for their dad, and always an inspiration.
With so many generous friends and family members from so many places for so many years, how could I not still be an optimist?
Thomas L. Friedman
Bethesda, Maryland (but really still from Minnesota)
August 2016
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
“Abandon Stocks, Embrace Flows” (Hagel, et al.)
Abdi, Barkhad
Abdirahman, Sagal
Abdirahman, Zamzam
Abu Khalil
Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)
Acheson, Dean
Adams, Don
adaptability: learned behavior and; of Mother Nature; political innovation and
ADD (amplify, deter, degrade) geopolitical policy
Adler typewriters
adolescents, cyberspace and
Aedes aegypti mosquito
aerosol loading
Afghanistan
Afghanistan War
Africa: agriculture in; climate change in; conflict and terrorism in; migration patterns of; population growth in; weak states in
African Americans: discrimination against; in Minneapolis; in Minnesota; ownership taken by; in St. Louis Park
Agadez, Niger
age of accelerations; dislocation and; education and; human adaptability as challenged by; as inflection point; innovation as response to; leadership and; the Machine and; Moore’s law and; social technologies and
agriculture: in Africa and Middle East; climate change and; monocultures vs. polycultures in
Airbnb; trust and
air-conditioning
Aita, Samir
algorithms; human oversight and; self-improving
Alivio Capital
Allen, Paul
Allisam, Graham
Almaniq, Mati
Al Qaeda
Al-Shabab
AltaVista
Amazon (company)
Amazon rain forest
Amazon Web Services
American Civil Liberties Union
American Dream
American Interest
American University of Iraq
“America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Then and Now” (Kauffman Foundation)
Amman, Jordan
amplifying, as geopolitical policy
Andersen, Jeanne
Anderson, Chris
Anderson, Ross
Anderson, Wendell
Andreessen, Marc
Andrews, Garrett
Android
AngularJS
Annan, Kofi
Anthropocene epoch
Anthropocene Review
anti-Semitism
APIs (application programming interfaces)
Apple; see also Jobs, Steve
Applebaum, Anne
Apple Newton
Apple Pay
apps revolution
Arab Awakening
Arabic, author’s study of
Arab-Muslim world, golden age of
Arafat, Yasser
architects, software for
Armstrong, Neil
artificial intelligence (AI); intelligent algorithms and; intelligent assistance and
Artnet.com
Ashe, Neil
Ashraf, Quamrul
Assad, Bashar al-
Associated Press
Astren, Fred
AT&T; intelligent assistance and; iPhone gamble of; lifelong learning and; as software company
Atkinson, Karen
atmosphere: aerosol loading in; CO2 in; ozone layer of
ATMs
Auguste, Byron
Austria
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Autodesk
automation, see computers, computing
autonomous systems; see also cars, self-driving
Autor, David
Avaaz.org
Azmar Mountain
Bajpai, Aloke
Baker, James A., III
balance of power
Bandar Mahshahr, Iran
bandwidth
Bangladesh
bankruptcy laws
bank tellers
Barbut, Monique
baseball, class-mixing and
BASIC
Bass, Carl
Batman, Turkey
BBCNews.com
Bee, Samantha
Beinhocker, Eric
Beirut: civil war in; 1982 Israeli-Palestinian war in
Bell, Alexander Graham
Bell Labs
Bennis, Warren
Benyus, Janine
Berenberg, Morrie
Berenberg, Tess
Berkus, Nate
Berlin, Isaiah
Berlin Wall, fall of
Bessen, James
Betsiboka River
“Better Outcomes Through Radical Inclusion” (Wells)
Between Debt and the Devil (Turner)
Beykpour, Kayvon
Bible
Bigbelly garbage cans
big data; consumers and; financial services and; software innovation and; supernova and
Big Shift
Big World, Small Planet (Rockström)
“Big Yellow Taxi” (song)
Bingham, Marjorie
bin Laden, Osama
bin Yehia, Abdullah
biodiversity: environmental niches and; resilience and
biodiversity loss; climate change and
biofuels
biogeochemical flows
biomass fuels
biotechnology
bioweapons
birth control, opposition to
Bitcoin
black elephants
Blase, Bill
blockchain technology
Bloomberg.com
Blumenfeld, Isadore “Kid Cann”
Bobby Z (Bobby Rivkin)
Bodin, Wes
Bohr, Mark
Bojia, Ayele Z.
Boko Haram
Bombetoka Bay
&nb
sp; Bonde, Bob
Bork, Les
Boston Consulting Group
Boston Globe
Bourguiba, Habib
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Brainerd, Mary
“Brains & Machines” (blog)
Braun, Gil
Brazil
breakers, super-empowered; degrading of; humiliation and; weak states and
Brew
“Brief History of Jews and African Americans in North Minneapolis, A” (Quednau)
Brimeyer, Jim
Brin, Sergey
broadband
Broadgate, Wendy
Brock, David
Brooks, David
Brooks, Mel
Brookview golf club
Brown, John Seely
Brynjolfsson, Erik
Bucksbaum, Phil
Buffett, Warren
building information modeling
buildings, energy efficient
Burke, Edmund
Burke, Tom
Burnett, T Bone
Burning Glass Technologies
business: social responsibility and
Business Bridge
Business Insider
Busteed, Brandon
Bustle.com
“Caddie Chatter” (Long and Seitz)
Cairo
calcium carbonate
California, University of, at San Diego
Cambodia
campaign spending
Campbell, James R.
Canada, Geoffrey
Canales, Carla Dirlikov
Cañon City, Colo.
Captain Phillips (film)
carbon dioxide (CO2): atmospheric; in oceans
carbon tax
Carlile, Brandi
Carlson, Arne
Carp, Howard
cars: electric; self-driving
Carter, Ashton
Carter, Bill
Castile, Philando
“Causes, Consequences and Ethics of Biodiversity” (Tilman)
Cazeneuve, Bernard
CBS.com
Cedar Lake
CEDIM
cell phones, see mobile phones
Center on Reinventing Public Education
Central America
Cevallos, Danny
Chaaban, Wissal
Chaifou, Adamou
change, accelerated pace of, see age of accelerations
Change.org
“Changing Shape of World History, The” (McNeill)
Charney, Craig
Chattanooga, Tenn., high-speed Internet in
Chattanoogan.com
Chávez, Hugo
Chesky, Brian
chess
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
chickens, poverty and
child marriage
child mortality
Children First
Child Tax Credit
China; as authoritarian state; “century of humiliation” in; debt of; Madagascar and; nationalism in; nuclear weapons of; 2015 economic slowdown in; U.S. relations with; workforce in
China Daily
“China Shock, The” (Autor)
Chipman, John
chlorofluorocarbons
Chopra, Karan
Chow, Alex Yong-Kang
Citibank
Citizens United decision
Citrix
CityLab.com
civic idealism
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
civil liberties
civil rights, movements for
Civil Rights Act (1964)
Clapper, James
clean energy
Clear Channel Outdoor Inc.
ClimateCentral.org
climate change; acceleration of; in Africa; agriculture and; biodiversity loss and; black elephants in; developing countries and; in Earth history; extreme weather in; geopolitics and; Moore’s law and; population growth and; Republican denial of; 2016 Paris conference on; weak states and
Clinton, Bill
Clodd, Edward
cloud computing, see supernova (cloud computing)
CNET.com
CNN.com
CNNMoney.com
Coast Guard Academy, U.S.
Codecademy
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
Coen, Joel and Ethan
Cold War; U.S. economic growth in; U.S.-Soviet competition for allies in
Coleman, David
collaboration, software innovation and
College Advising Corps
College Board
college degrees, skill sets and
colleges: continuous innovation in; traditional role of
Collins, Thomas J.
Columbia University
Comey, James
Common Core
communism
community: cultural identity and; health benefits of; importance of; innovation and; networks of; “the other” and; pluralism and; public spaces in; redefining of; as safety net; St. Louis Park as; trust and; value sets and
complexity: as free; of Mother Nature; supernova and
Computer History Museum
computers, computing: cloud and see supernova (cloud computing); cognitive era of; components of; see also specific components; democratization and; disruption and; Moore’s law and, see Moore’s law; personal, as commodities; programming era of; tabulating era of; workforce and
“Computing, Cognition and the Future of Knowing” (Kelly)
concentration, learning and
Conexant Systems
Confederate flag
connections, human-to-human
connectivity, advances in; education and; the Market and; poverty and; supernova and; terrorists and; 2000 as breakthrough year in; 2007 as breakthrough year in; workplace and; see also global flows
Conservative Party, British
consumer electronics, advances in
consumption; population growth and
coral reefs
Corbat, Michael L.
Core
corrective rape
Coursera
“Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits” (Moore)
credentials
CRISPR
“Cultural Diversity, Geographical Isolation and the Origin of the Wealth of Nations” (Ashraf and Galor)
cultural identity, inclusive ethos and
culture: diversity in; ownership in
Culture Matters in Russia—and Everywhere (Harrison, ed.)
Curie, Marie
Cutting, Doug
cybercriminals
cyberspace, see supernova (cloud computing)
cyberwarfare
Daily Telegraph
dairy industry, computerization in
Dakar
Dalio, Ray
Daly, Herman
Dara, Dina
Dara’a, Syria
Darwin, Charles
data, see big data
data transmission, cost-speed ratio in
DataWind
Davison, Lang
Debreu, Gérard
decolonization
Deep Blue
Defense Department, U.S.
deforestation
de la Vega, Ralph
Delgo, Lior
Dell, Michael
Deming, David
democracy; computation and
Democratic convention (1948)
Democratic Party
Deng Xiaoping
desertification
designers, supernova and
deterrence
Deutsch, Lisa
developing world; climate change and; global flows and; industrialization in
diabetes
Diamond, Jared
Diamond, Larry
Digital Globalization (McKinsey Global Institute)
dining room tables, discussion around
Dirkou, Niger
Disko Island
dislocation
br /> disruption; computation and; political; workforce and
diversity: in culture; economic growth and; immigration and; in politics
DNA sequencing
Dodd-Frank Act
Doerr, John
Donner, Jan Hein
Donovan, John
Don’t Tell Douglas (Meyer)
DOS
dot-com bubble, positive effects of
DRAM (dynamic random access memory)
droughts
DTECH-ENGINEERING
Dubai
Dukakis, Michael
Dunne, Jimmy
Dust Bowl
dynamic stability
Earle, Sylvia
Earned Income Tax Credit
Earth: history of; see also Mother Nature, human impact on
East Asia, economics of
Eastern Europe
eBay
Ebola
e-books
Echo, The (St. Louis Park High newspaper)
e-commerce
economic disparity
Economist
economy, U.S.; Cold War growth in; postwar; progressivism and
ecosystems; degradation of; resiliency of
Edison, Thomas
education: Common Core standards for; concentration and; mentors in; population growth and; self-motivation and; self-ownership in; skill sets and; socioeconomic disparity and; of women; workforce and
education, innovation in; advances in connectivity and; in age of accelerations; global flows and; intelligent assistants and; online courses in; supernova and; tax deductions for; see also lifelong learning
Edwards, Bruce
edX
Egypt; 2011 revolution in; U.S. military aid to
Egyptian Army
elections, U.S.: gerrymandering and; ranked-choice voting in
Electronics
El Salvador
e-mail; messaging apps vs.
“Emerald City of Giving Does Exist” (New York Times article)
emerging markets
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
empathy; live video and
Empire of Wealth, An (Gordon)
encryption
Energryn
energy, technological change and
energy efficiency
Enestvedt, Harold
Enova
Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.
Ericsson
Eritrea
ethics, innovation in; freedom and; leadership and; sustainable values and
Ethiopia
Ethiopians, in Minnesota
Euphrates River
Europe: illegal immigration into; wireless networks in
European Union; Britain’s exit from
evolution; human manipulation of
Evolution and Human Behavior
Exploratorium
exponential change; see also Moore’s law