That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back

Things making Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum frustrated against and irritated about are similar to the Japanese situation. Lacking sense of facing crisis will be totally lethal combination of cockiness and complacency for every developed nations. Four big challenges we are facing, spreading globalization, advancing information technology, soaring budget deficit, rising energy consumption and climate threat, need an immediate action. Tom and Michael suggest Americans' recognizing these challenges and reminding America's strength developed to face similar challenges in the past are inevitable as two preconditions to tackle with these issues. They believe American society retains the characteristics of used to be them, which made the United States exceptional. And the fact the United States has rarely failed to meet major changes over the course of its history make them optimistic in clearing these obstacles. What Americans need is to understand their own history and need to adapt the formula, the priorities, and the practices that are embedded in their history and in their cultures. We are facing the very turn of our times, we shouldn't miss it. Tom and Michael propose five measures as pillars for solution; 1) providing public education, 2) the building and continual modernizing of infrastructure, 3) keeping doors to immigrants open, 4) government support for basic research and development, 5) the implementation of necessary regulations on private economic activity. These are also applicable to Japan, the Japanese society without any amendment.First of all, Tom and Michael say, we have to start treating education as an economic issue. As a natural result of globalization and automation, every workers are destined to be superseded by cheaper laborers, if they aren't creators or creative servers. Surviving companies want those who wants to belong to a values-based group, who can communicate, who is inquisitive, and who has an instinct to collaborate. We need to become a creative person by thinking like an immigrant, thinking like an artisan, thinking like a waitress. They report raising math, science, reading, and creativity levels in American schools is deteriorating. Japan faces similar trend. Figures they indicate in this book is hard to believe hastily. According to the research, 75 percent of young Americans, between the age of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit. Tom and Michael sound an alarm as there comes a time we feel great stress against thick Chinese accent of anticipated out of college Chinese boss sooner or later.The political situation in Japan is thrown into confusion as like in America. Though we don't have two party system in our society, scrambling for political power blocks precisely the kind of initiatives we need, which lead to loss of confidence in our institution and in the authority of leaders across the society, resultantly the nation's infrastructure have been endangered due to decades of underfunding and inattention. Weakening of our sense of shared national purpose, as Tom and Michael point out in this book, seems to propel Japanese society into situational values, the short-term, me-first, never-mind-the-future attitude rather than seeking sustainable values. Tom and Michael say the intense pressures of the twenty-four-hour news cycle cause a bad effect over politics by elevating the passion to extreme, not allowing one to reflect well about one's doing. To connect a serious disjunction exists between the American people and the government they elect, they propose a shock therapy to American politics by injecting a third party. Using a third party as a sacrificed stone, Tom and Michael want to extract a hybrid politics that would replace grudging compromise between two hostile ideologies with a creative synthesis, which I don't fully agree with them. They seem to be prepossessed with the current political system. If they believe only a compelling third-party candidate offers an engine to harness that steam to move the country in the direction in which it needs to go and the number of voters who register as independents has grown steadily over the decades, why they don't help a third party to get a reasonable share of political power in a system of proportional representation. At the time 3D system becomes popular in IT world, why don't they seek the center of the three parties and candidates hang out on the extremes. Japan has experienced several "wave" elections, but we failed to utilized these opportunities. The outcome was the same war in the glass for the hegemony. Now is the time to take back our bedrock values which had drifted from us.

What a marvelous book co-authored by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum. America is truly at a cross roads in terms of our political influence world-wide. On the home front and over the past decades our nation has lost ground in terms of its economical and political influence world-wide. Our nation must regain its economical and political dominance that can be used to improve the standards of all nations.In order to achieve the above, their are four areas that we must improve upon as a world power. The authors discuss these areas and suggest what needs to be done. And they are able to draw upon the influence of other nations upon these same areas needing improvement. We can no longer stand alone or preach isolationism as done many decades ago. All nations, friendly and unfriendly are connected at the hip. We are interdependent upon one another whether we desire it or not. The internet and world wide economic-political influences are the glue that bind us together or draws us apart..This book has a fresh appeal since the influence of Mandelbaum has added creditability to the over all work. I highly recommend that you read this book and let its message influence your vote in 2016. We all have the responsibility to become informed and vote intelligently. So now is the time to prepare.

Friedman and Mandelbaum wrote a comprehensive view of how we used to be and how fast things are changing to leave us behind most of the rest of the world. Friedman was very clear that the World is Flat 1.0 means that, with new innovations (especially technology) all countries can have the same competitive advantages now, while the US dominated in the past. Now he claims we are at Flat 2.0, which means that each individual, thanks to technology, can have equal advantages by being able to cooperate with others across the globe without ever meeting the person face-to-face. The authors give a myriad of examples.The most important component of the authors ‘solution is education. The US can put itself back on the top, or vie for the top by teaching students to think critically and use technology (and keep learning the new technology as it is invented). This will propel the US back to being the leader in the world economy.As a former High School physics teacher I concur with most of what the authors but not with the authors’ solution to improving education. First, the authors assume schools are failing based on several standards including international test scores. My school had an exchange with one of our administrators and the head of the Shanghai school system. The Shanghai administrator, who spent a week at our school, told our faculty that while the US had a representative sample of all schools take the international test while China only allowed students from Shanghai, their best school district, to take the test. Not surprisingly the Chinese students came in first. There are other apples-and-oranges in international testing that call into question the validity of the test comparisons. Based on that the Shanghai administrator told us that we (a suburban school) should not put much stock in the test results because he saw firsthand that we were doing an excellent job.Second, not all schools are equal, even among public schools. Suburban schools have distinct advantages over urban schools (more money; more stable families; parents with more education, affecting the aspirations of their children) and rural schools (size matters; a full time physics teacher can devote more time to a subject than a teacher who has to teach physics, chemistry, and earth science). This does not mean that all suburban teachers are better than urban or rural ones are, but by and large the various factors add up to advantages for suburban schools.Finally, the authors want to make teachers better by incentivizing them with some bonuses, being resigned to the fact that we won’t pay teachers commensurate with their role in society. They believe that teachers will teach regardless of low pay because the want to teach. In the real world money matters, real money not just smaller bonuses for a few. School districts who can offer higher pay have a larger pool of candidates from which they hire. In addition, many who would like to teach and may make very good teachers choose not become educators because of the student debt they have accrued. When society wants to give the teaching profession more respect, including better salaries, teaching will improve because more good candidates will choose teaching. When schools can afford to offer teachers more preparation time the teachers will become more affective. Also, when schools can afford to have a longer school year and pay teachers for working 220 days like in some countries (instead of 180 in the US) education will improve.It is a good read. I would encourage reading "That Used to be Us" and "The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies" by Joseph Joffe as a counter. Joffe argues that the US will not fall off the planet because the US has been in this position before and has been able to adapt and move forward. The two books together can give the reader a more balanced approach to reality.

Very good book and shopping.

good book.Indians should read this to avoid some of the mistakes US has made while planning our future.

compelling

c'est une excellente analyses des problemes des EU et comment les resoudre. le livre est tres constructif et s'applique aux problemes dont souffrent la grande majoritee des nations de l'OECD.

This is not about book review rather the quality of the book delivered to me. If I walk-in store and buy this one, I would get a bran dnew book in all sense like, it looks neat,clean, no color change on covers and side etc.But this book delivered to me has dirt at many places. Long side of it became yellow colored which suggests me of a shelved book for a long time.Have images of this- I can share them.At the time of ordering this book , I have also purchased two more and neither of them had this issue.