Never before in the field of human intellect has so much information been available to so many at any one time.

And the latest tome by canonical, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman certainly doesn't short-change on the way to the data bank in his effort to define the geopolitical dynamics of the new millennium.

The influential New York Times columnist joins a growing band of societal interpreters in what seems a race to leave their mark on the definition of the latest stage of globalisation, and ensuing trends in personal, commercial and political interaction.

The self-described 'technological determinist' argues that it is, crucially, the convergence of an array of techno-forces and flashpoints that has chiefly determined the world's economic and political strategies of the 21st century - from the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which brought billions of cold war citizens onto the open commercial stage, to 1995, when Netscape went public and opened the doors to the universal library.

Keystone events such as these have, in turn, sparked a new-age geo-economy incorporating burgeoning outsourcing, off-shoring and supply chaining. The gearing (convergence) of these forces, says Friedman, has resulted in a grandiose democratisation of knowledge, which has freed the individual to act, more than ever before, beyond the constraints of national or corporate boundaries.

There is now instant access to any information by anyone with the appropriate hardware - and instant access by any company to any of these individuals who may then offer their own home-based skills for online purchase. Access by the techno-enhanced individual, the technology and the speed of access transfixes this analyst.

Bangalore tax consultants attend to millions of US tax returns. Every Avis car ordered by phone is now routed through a call centre in India.

American generals in a Qatar operations room watch four screens: three of different views of Iraq seen from Predator drones piloted from Nellis Airforce Base in Las Vegas, and a fourth screen showing a Yankees-Red Sox game.

Anything, any time, anywhere. The playing field has become flat.

However, there seems an underlying agenda that takes a large portion of the book to reveal itself. As much as the word 'globalisation' is touted, most examples of the beneficiaries of the new convergences point to the east, while techno-troubled continents Africa and (to a lesser extent) South America barely raise a pant, let alone a sweat among the chapters.

Software masters India and industrial powerhouse China quietly assume a discomforting superpower brotherhood for the author.

Frightening statistics (for the US) reveal an uneasy, growing dependence on India for info-tech abilities, while turning over your kitchen appliances instantly reveals where the new manufacturing centre of the world is.

In 2001, a Silicon Valley newsletter quoted a China People's Daily article claiming that 400 out of the Forbes 500 companies had invested in more than 2,000 projects in China - and that was four years ago.

Science and IT academies abound and positions are hard fought for by students among the 2.5 billion-strong India and China. Only the best get in.

The Bush administration cut the 2005 funding of the National Science Foundation by US$100million. A study by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation reveals federal funding for research in physical and mathematical sciences and engineering, as a share of GDP, declined by 37 per cent between 1970 and last year. Many more perturbing US statistics expose an arguably expanding education gap with the eastern powerhouses.

Although lauding the Everyman consequence of the world's tech prowess, the flattening- world neophyte, however, gradually exhibits a disconcerting xenophobia.

A 'more equal' world, he seems to want to whisper, is on the one hand a fine example of the progress of democracy, an ebullient dividend of the right and power of the individual. Yet, on the other hand, 'more equal' seems to foment a private fear that it might be a 'more equal' equation that an increasingly 'dumbed down' US is prepared to bear.

Warnings of America's growing dependencies on the 'new liberated world' litter the treatise with regularity, as do warnings about China's growing ascendancy, and appetite for power.

'In 30 years, we [US] will have gone from 'sold in China' to 'made in China' to 'designed in China' to 'dreamed up in China',' writes Friedman.

Win Liu, a director of Dalian's biggest homegrown software firms, drums the point home: 'Americans don't realise the challenge to the extent that they should.'

A US official at the US embassy in Beijing says: 'I think Americans are oblivious to the huge changes. Every American who comes over to visit me [in China] is just blown away ... the competition is coming, and many of the kids are going to move into their 20s clueless about these rising forces.'

Friedman's worst fears are underscored by a nonplussed Chinese central bank official who frankly reveals his view of China's relationship with the US: 'First we were afraid of the wolf, then we wanted to dance with the wolf, and now we want to be the wolf.'

Globalisation is a big word, literally. It's a pity that Friedman, although he takes great pains to consider the entire 'connected' world, ultimately falls foul of his own fears and fails to raise his game higher than an extremely knowledgeable, entertaining and erudite warning about the future of his own country in the new, flat world.