That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back Characters & Character Analysis

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back Important People

Tom Friedman

Tom Friedman is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism three times. He is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and is the author of this book along with Michael Mandelbaum. As a journalist, Tom did his research thoroughly and went out in the field to gain information and knowledge necessary for writing this book.

Friedman attended the World Economic Forum summer conference in September 2010 in Tianjin, China. He had visited the city five years before and was amazed at the changes he saw in 2010. Previously, the only way to access the city from Beijing was by car. When he arrived for the forum, he was astonished at the sleek modern glass building in Tianjin that now housed a station for China's world-class high-speed train. In his mind, he compared the pristine building with the deteriorating station back in his hometown in Maryland that houses...
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