Abstract

In a January 3, 2012 editorial, Thomas Friedman asked the Republican candidates for the U. S. Presidency to attend to "the world in which we're living and how we adapt to it." At the top of his list, he wanted America to exploit the power created when information and communications technologies (ICT) meet globalization. ICT has flattened Friedman's world, providing "faster and cheaper tools with which anyone anywhere can innovate, collaborate and create." Globalization positions more and more empowered anybodies into ecosystems " the best of which will be found in "cities and towns that combine a university, an educated populace, (and) a dynamic business community""where they can collaborate to collect, sift, mine and analyze "Big Data" in hopes of discovering and claiming new commodities and services. Rather than extending ICT access "to the last 5 percent of the country in rural areas," Friedman warns that America should redirect its efforts to supply ultra highspeed bandwidth to the top 5 percent of these smart cities or fall from first world status. The remaining 95 percent must either adapt to this organization of the world or suffer impoverished lives.

How to Cite:

Shannon, T. P., (2012) “Book Review: Reclaiming the Rural: Essays on Literacy, Rhetoric, and Pedagogy”, Journal of Research in Rural Education 27(2), 1–3.

Rights: Copyright