Standard 8. Trade and Commerce

Lesson Plans and Activities:

Other Materials:

PBS has available on-line information about the human and physical geography of the Middle East — Geography: An Ancient and Modern Crossroads. A timeline of change, maps, and other information is provided.

  • A Crime so Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery; a book by E. Benjamin Skinner; New York: Free Press, 2008; ISBN 10 = 074329007.
  • A series of articles by E. Benjamin Skinner via Foreign Policy:

Hearts of the New Silk Roads; an article by in Saudi Aramco World, 2008, January/February, 59(1), pages 18-33. The author focuses on the changes in commerce, education, arts, and science in Almaty, Kazakhstan and Tashkent, Uzbekistan since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The Rise of Coffee; an article by F.E. Vega in the 2008 American Scientist, Vol. 96(Issue 2), pages 138-145. A brief history of coffee and its ascent to becoming the second most heavily traded commodity in the world. Ethiopia, Yemen, Java, Brazil and the Caribbean, Arabia, Europe, and North America. To obtain the full article, you must purchase the journal issue for approximately $6.95. Visit the website.

An article from the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, The Role of Trade Measures in Environmental Policy, is one of thousands indicative of the future changes in global trade (economics) as the focus on climate change influences everything and public awareness shifts toward sustainable development.