The universe is larger than the average imagination can even begin to fathom. Now take that size in cubed whateveryouwants and times it by a billion. You are finally beginning to scratch the tip of the iceberg. Straight down (an undisclosed and mysterious direction) past all known galaxies, galaxy clusters and super clusters, is "The Nothingness". An area of absolute blackness devoid of any and all matter; it is what separates the human universe from "Flat World". This infinite plain is a never-ending backdrop of strange and diverse topography, complete with countless species of unimaginable creatures and intelligent life forms alike. Led by a two foot tall yellow being known only as, "The Horned-Devil", the two Earth children Seth and Jo, along with an amiable Saint Bernard called, Buffalo, will traverse forests larger than the surface of Jupiter, Oceans that make the Pacific look like a mere puddle, deserts with seemingly no end, plus much, much more. But only once they face the hardships and tribulations of this epic tale, will their true and ultimate destiny be laid before them.

Explores globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks--environmental, social, and political.

How can we promote economic progress in a staggeringly complex global system? In the bestselling book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman argued that technology and globalization have leveled the playing field among workers and innovators worldwide. But why, ten years after he proposed thisthesis, are billions of people around the world still locked out of global prosperity and security?In Rules for a Flat World, law and economics professor Gillian Hadfield points to an outdated legal infrastructure as the cause of stagnating progress in the global economy. The world's biggest corporations are struggling to manage workers, and advance a consistent strategy, in dozens of countriesat once. Small businesses are being crushed by disruption a hemisphere away. Billions of people who constitute the bottom of the economic pyramid are still shut out of the technological, legal, and medical advancements that the other half of the world enjoys. Put simply, the law and legal methods onwhich we currently rely have failed to evolve along with technology. Hadfield argues not only that these systems are too slow, costly, and localized to support an increasingly complex global economy, but also that they fail to address looming challenges such as global warming, poverty, andoppression in developing countries.Instead of growing more agile and less expensive, our legal infrastructure is drowning in costs and complexity, all the while growing less capable of responding to the needs of businesses, governments, and ordinary people. Through a sweeping review of the emergence and evolution of law overthousands of years, Hadfield makes the case that our existing methods of producing law-via legislatures, courts, and bureaucracies-need supplementing. Markets, she argues, have the capacity to spur investment in regulation so that we can better manage smarter, faster, and more complicated economicsystems. Combining an impressive grasp of the empirical details of economic globalization with an ambitious re-envisioning of our global legal system, Rules for a Flat World is a crucial and influential intervention into the debates surrounding how best to manage the evolving global economy.

“This is essential reading for anyone seeking to compete–and succeed–in the fl at world.” –John Hagel, Chairman of Deloitte Center of Innovation “Competing in a Flat World provides an extraordinary glimpse into a new kind of organizational architecture, one built around the notion of orchestrating resources you don’t control and doing so in a way that builds both trust and agility. This architecture may well turn out to be the dominant model of the firm for the 21st century. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to compete in a flat world. Every chapter details new and powerful ideas.” –John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and coauthor of The Only Sustainable Edge “We are led by unstoppable economic forces to connect our resources to form smart networks, either wired or unwired. The authors bring forward the notion of ‘network orchestration,’ an almost one-size-fits-all strategy for organizations to survive and excel in an ever-flattening world.” –John Chen, Sybase Chairman, CEO and President In the “flat world,” everything changes...above all, what it takes to run a winning company. Success is less about what the company can do itself and more about what it can connect to. Find out how it’s done, from the company that pioneered “flat world” success, Li & Fung, which produces more than $8 billion in garments and other goods for the world’s top brands and retailers–without owning a single factory. Victor and William Fung and Jerry Wind, author of the best-selling The Power of Impossible Thinking, reveal how they’ve replaced “old-fashioned” infrastructure and huge employee bases with a fluid, ever-changing network that can design, manufacture, and deliver almost anything, anywhere. The key to success in this world is a set of principles for “network orchestration,” described for the first time in this book. They examine how these principles can be applied in manufacturing, services and other industries. They show how to build and orchestrate your own world-class global network. * Compete “network vs. network”–and win! * Create a “big-small” company that combines scale and agility * Forge loose-tight relationships with suppliers * Balance control with empowerment, stability with renewal * Manage the “bumps” in the flat world–from politics to terrorism Visit the authors' website: www.competinginaflatworld.net