Addressing the looming effects of climate change, rapid population growth, and globalization, Thomas L. Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded is both an eye-opening report and an inspiring call to action. The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to encourage further dialogues, helping readers share ideas and apply Friedman’s insights on local and international levels. We hope this guide will enrich your experience of his groundbreaking work.

Author of the number one bestseller The World Is Flat and one of America’s most respected columnists, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman has transformed the way we see the world, and he has transformed the way we talk about the most important issues of our time. With Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Friedman is poised to spark his most powerful conversations yet, taking on the interlinked woes of skyrocketing fuel costs, diminishing natural resources, and a planet that seems unable to sustain us in the future. But Friedman is no naysayer. On the contrary: he is optimistic that the twenty-first century can become a time of extraordinary achievement --- from tackling the energy crisis to lifting scores of the earth’s inhabitants from poverty.

A rallying cry that harkens back to the Greatest Generation as well as the era of sweeping 1960s social reforms, Hot, Flat, and Crowded offers provocative yet realistic solutions that take into account Friedman’s first hand, frontline research from every corner of the earth. Presenting a riveting tour of power brokers and ordinary citizens in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, and North America, Friedman equips readers with essential knowledge about the unprecedented transformations occurring in global commerce, geopolitics, and other aspects of the international stage. Synthesizing this reporting into an ambitious national strategy, Friedman declares that “geo-greenism” is not only vital but also economically sound --- a key component in spurring new levels of prosperity and productivity for Americans from all walks of life. A sweeping action plan for the Greenest Generation, Hot, Flat, and Crowded translates dire headlines into an exhilarating proposal that will mobilize Main Street and Wall Street with equal zeal.