Free book excerpt from The Lexus and The Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman. Use your browser's Print function to print this page. When taken all together the elements of this Cold War system influenced the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country in the world. The Cold War system didn't shape everything, but it shaped many things. Today's era of globalization, which replaced the Cold War, is a similar international system, with its own unique attributes.
Globalization means the spread of free-market capitalism to virtually every country in the world.
Unlike the Cold War system, globalization has its own dominant culture, which is why it tends to be homogenizing. And these technologies helped to create the defining perspective of globalization. The symbol of the Cold War system was a wall, which divided everyone. The symbol of the globalization system is a World Wide Web, which unites everyone. Once a country makes the leap into the system of globalization, its elites begin to internalize this perspective of integration, and always try to locate themselves in a global context.