That Should Still Be Us: How Thomas Friedman's Flat World Myths Are Keeping Us Flat on Our Backs Hardcover by Martin Sieff (Wiley)

This is an extremely timely book. The serious presentation of the historic growth and development of our industrial strength and economic well-being and the leadership that brought us to it is outstanding. It deserves the attention of our elected leaders in the Congress and Executive branches -- the decision makers we look to to regain our industrial and economic strength, create jobs and stop the decline of our middle class. The book's publicity emphasizes that it takes issue with the writings of Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," and "That Used to Be Us." For me that is unfortunate because it distracts one from Martin Sieff's effective presentation of hundreds of years of documented economic history at odds with assumptions and strategies our leaders are currently implementing. These, including concepts such as free-trade have been put into play with the ideological goals of creating the ideal "Flat World" and helping us regain our own economic prosperity. The author clearly shows that many of the assumptions on which these strategies are based are bad and the strategies are not workable. He strives for the reader to recognize how we became the world's greatest industrial economic power and suggests how, understanding that history and regaining our use of those same strategies, we can regain the leadership that we have been losing, indeed, throwing away!