9781422277409

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Getting Here

Words to Understand commodities raw materials or agricultural products that are bought and sold economic depressions periods of time in which the economy of a country or a region declines and money is worth less; wages fall and work is harder to find exploiting taking unfair advantage of infrastructure the basic organizational and physical (such as roads and power plants) structures needed to run a society restrictive presenting difficulties or limitations I t might be one of history’s most notable “food fights.” Sometime around the 14th century, two sons of an African king got into a fight with their father over palm wine. Was it about how to make it? (Hint: Start with the sap of a flavorful palm tree, like a coconut.) Was it over who deserved to receive a few bottles as a gift? Was it about who had, um, a bit too much? The details of this dust-up are fuzzy, but it didn’t end well. Fed up with his sons, the king disinherited themboth and selected his daughter to take over after he died.

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