9781422281208

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Global Trade, Poverty, and Inequality G lobal trade has a long history. The ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia—present-day southern Iraq— imported timber, stone, and metals from as far away as today’s Turkey, Afghanistan, and southern Pakistan. Roman-era ships crisscrossed the Mediterranean and beyond, loaded with Egyptian grain, Indian spices, Greek wine, and hundreds of other lucrative commodities for trade. Chinese merchants peddled silk and other goods along the Silk Road, a sprawling network of trade routes opened by the Han Dynasty in the second century BCE to link Asia and Europe. But while international trade is not a new phenomenon, what is new is today’s highly integrated global marketplace. For most of human history, trade connections between different continents were limited. Today, every continent is part of a vast web of trade connections, governed by a globalized economy. The food and drinks we consume, the appliances we use, the

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