The Lexus and the Olive Tree

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**The Lexus and the Olive Tree**

Author	Thomas L. Friedman
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	International economic relations Free trade Capitalism--Social aspects Technological innovations--Economic aspects Technological innovations--Social aspects Intercultural communication Globalization United States--Foreign economic relations
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released	1999
Media Type	Hardcover
Pages	394
ISBN	ISBN 0374192030

The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a 1999 book by Thomas L. Friedman that posits that the world is currently undergoing two struggles: the drive for prosperity and development, symbolized by the Lexus, and the desire to retain identity and traditions, symbolized by the olive tree. He claims he came to this realization while eating a sushi box lunch on a Japanese bullet train after visiting a Toyota factory, and reading an article about conflict in the Middle East.

Perhaps the most famous theory presented in this book is the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, which states: "No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's".

However, this is a controversial proposition, and depends upon a flexible interpretation of the term "war". Below are some potential counterexamples to this theory:

(1989) United States invasion of Panama
(1999) NATO bombing of Serbia
(1999) battles between India and Pakistan

Israel and Lebanon were in a state of war beginning 1973 and had franchises opened in 1995 and 1998, respectively, when both countries were still involved in an active war (which ended only with Israel's withdrawal in 2000). Hostilities began again in 2006.

In the 2000 edition of the book, Friedman answered criticism of his theory as follows:

"I was both amazed and amused by how much the Golden Arches Theory had gotten around and how intensely certain people wanted to prove it wrong. They were mostly realists and out-of-work Cold Warriors who insisted that politics, and the never-ending struggle between nation-states, were the immutable defining feature of international affairs, and they were professionally and psychologically threatened by the idea that globalization and economic integration might actually influence geopolitics in some very new and fundamental ways." (The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 2000 edition, page 251)