Thomas friedman and michael mandelbaum biography

They offer a way out of the trap into which the country has fallen, which includes the rediscovery of some of our most valuable traditions and the creation of a new, third-party movement. That Used to Be Us is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal. We need to study harder, save more, spend less, invest wisely, and get back to the formula that made us successful as a country in every previous historical turn.

What we need is not novel or foreign, but values, priorities, and practices embedded in our history and culture, applied time and again to propel us forward as a country. That is all part of our past. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In What's Wrong with America? Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what needs to be done now to rediscover America's power and prowess.

They explain how the end of the cold war blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously. They show how America's history, when properly understood, provides the key to coping successfully and explain how the paralysis of the US political system and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible to carry out the policies the country needs.

What's Wrong with America? See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 3, The Christian Science Monitor. The New York Times. That Used To Be Us. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Thomas friedman and michael mandelbaum biography

ISBN And boy, she pounded the fundamentals of journalism into her students—not simply how to write a lead or accurately transcribe a quote, but, more important, how to comport yourself in a professional way and to always do quality work. To this day, when I forget to wear a tie on assignment, I think of Hattie scolding me. Hattie was the toughest teacher I ever had.

After you took her journalism course in 10th grade, you tried out for the paper, The Echo, which she supervised. Competition was fierce. That year, though, she let me write one story. It was about an Israeli general who had been a hero in the Six-Day War, who was giving a lecture at the University of Minnesota. I covered his lecture and interviewed him briefly.

His name was Ariel Sharon. First story I ever got published. We hung out there before and after school. Now, you have to understand, Hattie was a single woman, nearing 60 at the time, and this was the s. None of us could have articulated it then, but it was because we enjoyed being harangued by her, disciplined by her and taught by her. She was a woman of clarity in an age of uncertainty.

After graduating from high school inFriedman attended the University of Minnesota and Brandeis University, and graduated summa cum laude in with a degree in Mediterranean studies. During his undergraduate years, he spent semesters abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the American University in Cairo. Following his graduation from Brandeis, Friedman attended St.

Inhe received an M. Ann, after graduating from Stanford with a B. They were married in London on Thanksgiving Day Friedman spent almost a year reporting and editing in London before UPI dispatched him to Beirut as a correspondent in the spring of He and Ann lived in Beirut from June to May while he covered the civil war there and other regional stories.

The Beirut assignment was his introduction to life as a foreign correspondent. The best journalism school there is, in fact. It had thirteen holes and the driving range was adjacent to a Palestinian firing range. From May to AprilFriedman worked as a general assignment financial reporter for the Times. He specialized in OPEC and oil-related news, which had become an important topic as a result of the Iranian revolution.

Marine compound in Beirut. He also covered the aftermath of the Hama massacre in Syria, where the Syrian government leveled part of a town, killing thousands, to put down a Muslim fundamentalist insurrection. For his work, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. It was a relatively quiet time in Israel, but in the West Bank and Gaza the first Palestinian intifada was brewing.

Friedman devoted much of his reporting to those two simmering volcanoes, which would erupt right at the end of his tour. As a result of his work, he was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and was granted a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to write a book about the Middle East.