Longitudes and Attitudes

This book felt like two, disparate parts: A compilation from his New York Times columns and then a travelogue of encountering people in Saudi Arabia reacting to his writing. The first part I found very uninteresting. The columns I found poor; the snarky and jokey attitude and multiple mock letters seemed to trivialize and provided not real insight. They were not illustrative or enlightening, at all. I would give that two stars as its own book. I would give four stars to the second half where Friedman reported his interactions with ruling class and middle class Saudis hindered by their beliefs that "Jews run everything" in America and their own cultural issues resulting in unemployed, bigoted males and a feeling that Israel is diabolical show more and Palestinians scapegoats that can do no wrong. Behind these black and white and unsupportable attitudes, some very intriguing reflection arose, largely in some personal communications beyond the veils that may obscure women of the stripe that will someday lead The Kingdom into a more balanced future. show less

I thought this book would be more about the sociological and cultural differences after September 11 but instead it was just political columns. It was hard to finish only because most of it read as a very high emotion and biased read that didn't really provide a good look at a post-terrorism world.

Having just finished the excellent " From Beirut to Jerusalem", I expected a fantastic collection of columns from the author. I was disappointed with many of his points of view.

Great reading interesting to see how his views change and develop during the course of the 9-11 contoversy.

A collection of Friedman's NYT columns exploring the factors behind and the US reaction to the bombing of the Trade Towers in New York.

Written by a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, the author explores how globalization is changing the world.

The before, during and after of the terrorist attack of 9-11-01