Mountain zones are distinctive because of their very high transport costs and often difficult terrain for crop production because of their alpine climates and steep slopes, though specialty crops such as coffee and tea often thrive in such high-elevation zones.

In the future, both the primary and secondary sector shares will continue to decline as jobs continue to shift toward services. In the United States, the shift from primary to tertiary employment is much further along. U.S. primary-sector employment is now a mere 2 percent of the total, with industry (construction and manufacturing) accounting for

The Phoenicians created perhaps the most consequential thalassocracy in history, not only because of the Phoenician accomplishment of creating a network of maritime trade throughout the Mediterranean region, but also by inspiring the Greek and Roman empires that followed. Phoenicia arose in present-day Lebanon, in the ancient coastal cities of Bybl

China’s nineteenth-century story actually begins in 1793, when the Chinese emperor rebuffed a British mission that sought to open British-Chinese trade. The Qing emperor could see no advantage in the request and sent the mission home without result. Another such mission failed in 1816. When Britain next returned, it did so with a vengeance, launchi

With the Ottoman Empire reigning in the newly named Istanbul, the ancient silk routes and sea routes to Asia were at risk.

The best evidence suggests that Homo sapiens emerged first on the African savannah around two hundred thousand years ago, the start of a period known as the Middle Paleolithic, though we must emphasize that genetic and fossil discoveries continue to alter the estimated chronology.

We can suppose that there will be eight major regional groupings: North America, South America, European Union, African Union, South Asia, East Asia, Commonwealth of Independent States, and Western Asia. These eight regional groupings could begin to constitute the core of global diplomacy. Currently, the UN is an organization of individual member s

The term United Nations was originally applied to the anti-fascist alliance in World War II led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. It then became the appellation for the successor body to the League of Nations. The new United Nations organization was established in 1945 under the UN Charter and assumed its home in New Y

Yet Athens’s decisive role in Western history was far from over, for it was the next century that gave us Plato, Aristotle, and the very foundations of Western philosophy. Socrates’ death sentence was carried out in 399 BCE, and his greatest student and follower, Plato, opened his famed Academy in 387 BCE. There Plato put forward many of the core c