Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, reporter, and columnist who has written five popular books, including From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Earth Is Flat. Friedman was born in Minneapolis in 1953 and grew up in the middle-class Minneapolis suburb of St. Paul. Louis Park is a neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a bachelor's degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University in 1975 and went on to St. With a Marshall Scholarship, he attended Antony's College, Oxford, and earned an M.Phil. Oxford University's current Middle East studies degree

He joined The New York Times after three years with United Press International, where he worked as a reporter, correspondent, bureau head, and columnist. He has received three Pulitzer Prizes while at the New York Times: in 1983 for foreign reporting (from Lebanon), 1988 for international reporting (from Israel), and 2002 for his columns following the September 11th attacks. From Beirut to Israel, Friedman's debut novel, earned the National Book Award in 1989. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999), his second book, won the Overseas Press Club Award for outstanding foreign policy book in 2000.

Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 was published in 2002 by FSG and includes a collection of his Pulitzer Prize-winning essays as well as a diary he kept following 9/11. In November 2005, his fourth book, The Earth Is Flat: A Short History of the Twenty-First Century (2005), became a #1 New York Times bestseller and won the first Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. In 2006 and 2007, a new and extended edition was issued in hardback. The Earth Is Flat has been translated into 37 languages and has sold over 4 million copies.

He published Hot, Flat, and Crowded in 2008, followed by a revised edition a year later. That Used to Be Us: How America Went Behind in the World It Created and How We Can Come Back, his sixth book, co-written with Michael Mandelbaum, was released in September 2011. Friedman and his family live in Bethesda, MD.