Also in the NYRB, an interesting attack on Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat by John Gray, a former NR contributor prior to his left turn. He hits Friedman for his technological determinism, exemplified in, among other things, how Freidman focuses on the information revolution as the key force that toppled the Soviet Union:
There is no mention of the role of Solidarity and the Catholic Church in making Poland the first post-Communist country, or of the powerful independence movements that developed in the Baltic nations during the Eighties. Most strikingly, there is no mention of the war in Afghanistan. By any account strategic defeat at the hands of Western-armed Islamist forces in that country (including some that formed the organization which was later to become al-Qaeda) was a defining moment in the decline of Soviet power. If Friedman ignores these events, it may be because they attest to the persistent power of religion and nationalism— forces that in his simple, deterministic worldview should be withering away.