"What is the relationship between trafficking and free trade? Is trafficking the perfection or a perversion of free trade? Trafficking occurs thousands of times each day at borders throughout the world, yet we've come to perceive it as something quite extraordinary. How did this happen, and what role does trafficking play in capitalism? To answer these questions, Johan Mathew traces the hidden networks that operated across the Arabian Sea in the nineteenth...

"Where does the United States fit in the global marketplace? Just how much are we exporting to, and importing from, other nations, and shouldn't those goods and services be regulated? The viewpoints in this anthology introduce readers to the pros and cons of globalization and the pitfalls involved with free trade. Readers will learn about trade restrictions, taxes, and tariffs, as well as topics like foreign investments, outsourcing, and why it may...

"Mexican cuisine has emerged as a paradox of globalization. Food enthusiasts throughout the world celebrate the humble taco at the same time that Mexicans are eating fewer tortillas and more processed food. Today Mexico is experiencing an epidemic of diet-related chronic illness. The precipitous rise of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease--all attributed to changes in the Mexican diet--has resulted in a public health emergency. In her gripping...

"Trade allows us to sell what we produce at home and purchase what we don't. It lowers prices and gives us greater variety and innovation. Yet understanding our place in the global trade network is rarely so simple, and today's workers are wary of being taken advantage of. Trade has become an easy excuse for struggling economies, a scapegoat for our failures to adapt to a changing world, and--for many Americans on both the right and the left--nothing...

"Unshackling America challenges the persistent fallacy that Americans fought two separate wars of independence. Williard Sterne Randall documents an unremitting fifty-year-long struggle for economic independence from Britain overlapping two armed conflicts linked by an unacknowledged global struggle. Throughout this perilous period, the struggle was all about free trade. Neither Jefferson nor any other Founding Father could divine that the Revolutionary...