Research Paper on:
The Lexus and the Olive Tree

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times and his work has taken him all over the globe. Drawing on his personal experience interviewing people from all walks of life  -- Brazilian peasant to Wall Street financial wizards -- Friedman offers not so much a detailed treatise on globalization -- he leaves that to the economists --but rather a close-up  look at a major societal paradigm shift in Western Civilization. According to Friedman, the old paradigm, i.e. the Cold War is gone, and what has replaced it is globalization --  it is not a passing phenomenon or trend that will disappear in a few months, but rather it is the harbinger of our future. Essential Features of Globalization  According to Friedman, "World affairs today can only be explained as the interaction between what is as new as an Internet Web site and what is as old as a  gnarled olive tree on the banks of the river Jordan" (25). As this suggests, Friedman argues that the world of today can be graphically represented by the "Lexus and the  Olive Tree." By "Lexus," Friedman means the Japanese luxury car, the "greatest luxury car in the world," which happens to be built by robots (27). While one part of  the world is concentrating on "building a better Lexus," and is dedicated to "modernizing, streamlining, and privatizing their economies in order to thrive in the system of globalization," the other  half of the world is still caught up in the fight over "who owns which olive tree" (27). Friedman goes on to equate "olive trees" with all that is  traditional, everything that conveys a sense of belonging, and he readily admits t hat "Olive trees are important" (27). However, it is clear that he considers the future to