Thomas Loren Friedman (born 1953 in Minnesota) is an American journalist and author who has won the Pulitzer Prize three times. Most of his career has been spent at The New York Times, where he became one of the most widely read commentators on foreign affairs, global trade and the Middle East.
He joined the paper as a reporter in 1981, after studying in Cairo, Oxford, Boston and Beirut. His first assignments took him to the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, work that earned him his first Pulitzer. In 1984 he moved to Jerusalem to run the paper's bureau there, and in 1988 he won a second Pulitzer for his reporting on the First Intifada. That period produced From Beirut to Jerusalem, which received the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1989.
He later moved to the opinion pages and turned his attention to foreign policy and economics. His style is easy to recognise: he mixes travel reporting with plain explanations of complicated systems, and his columns usually rest on interviews and first-hand observation. After the September 11 attacks he wrote extensively about terrorism, which brought him a Pulitzer for Commentary in 2002, and afterwards he returned to globalization with renewed focus.
In The Lexus and the Olive Tree he examined the tension between economic integration and local traditions. After visiting Bangalore he published The World Is Flat (2005), arguing that computers, fibre optics and software had linked far-flung suppliers into global chains. Some of his ideas remain hotly disputed, including the so-called Golden Arches theory, which held that countries with a McDonald's did not go to war with each other. The author offered it half in jest, but it was broken in practice by the 2008 conflict in South Ossetia.
His legacy lies mainly in public explanation. His way of making globalization and the Middle East understandable to a broad readership has shaped American press debate, although his positions, including his support for the Iraq War, have drawn steady criticism.
Key works
- From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989): an account of his years as a correspondent in the Middle East.
- The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999): an essay on how global economic integration coexists with local identities.
- Longitudes and Attitudes (2002): reflections on the world after September 11.
- The World Is Flat (2005): an analysis of how technology and trade reshaped the global economy.
- Hot, Flat and Crowded (2008): a proposal on energy and climate change.
Curiosities
A theory with an expiry date
The Golden Arches theory claimed that countries with a McDonald's did not go to war with each other. It held in practice until the 2008 South Ossetia conflict, which pitted Russia and Georgia against each other, both of which had McDonald's restaurants.
Caddie for a professional golfer
As a teenager he wanted to become a professional golfer. In 1970 he caddied for Chi Chi Rodriguez when the US Open came to his town.
Summers on a kibbutz
He spent all three of his high school summers living on Kibbutz HaHotrim, near Haifa. He has described those years as one long celebration of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.
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