Thomas Friedman

He is an avid fan of golf.

Thomas Friedman was born on July 20, 1953 in Minneapolis, to Harold and Margaret Friedman. He has two older sisters; Shelly and Jane.

He attended Hebrew school until his ‘Bar Mitzvah’. He then studied at St. Louis Park High School, where he wrote articles for his school’s newspaper. He was enamored by Israel after a trip to the country in 1968.

From a very young age, he wanted to become a professional golfer and even was a transport assistant at a local country club in 1970.

He studied at the University of Minnesota and then at Brandeis University from where he graduated with a degree in Mediterranean Studies, in 1975. After graduating from there, he studied at St. Antony’s College at the University of Oxford.

He earned an M. Phil in Middle Eastern studies from the university, while he was studying there on a Marshall scholarship.

He joined the London bureau of United Press International and was dispatched after a year to Beirut where he lived from 1979 to 1981, to cover a war.

He was finally recruited by ‘The New York Times’ in 1981 and was again sent to Beirut at the beginning of the 1982 to cover Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

In 1984, he was transferred to Jerusalem where he was appointed as the Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the next four years.

He authored one of his best-selling books, ‘From Beirut to Jerusalem’ in 1989. In the next couple of years, he extensively covered Secretary of State, James Baker during the running of U.S. President, George H.W. Bush.

In 1992, after Bill Clinton was sworn in as President, he was made the ‘Times’ White House correspondent. Two years later, he penned more written works on economics and foreign policy and appeared as the foreign affairs correspondent for ‘The New York Times’, the next year.

‘The World Is Flat’ was published on April 5, 2005 and became an international best-seller. By the next year, it had sold more than two million copies worldwide and even won the ‘Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award’.