"Insults, lies, and whale blood" should be the title for the latest international dispute involving the icy waters of Antarctica. Although this placid and remote area of the world seems to be the last place one might expect to encounter an intense debate between opposing cultures, the dispute is creating a worldwide legal stir that…

The death of Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013, prompted a global outpouring of tributes and opened up important teachable moments for social studies educators. Some news commentators noted that effusive media coverage ran the risk of turning Mandela retrospectively into such a saintly figure as to airbrush away his humanity and his struggles.…

Waves of revolutionary actions beginning in late 2010 led to the downfall of dictatorial leaders who had been entrenched in the Arab world for decades. Everyday citizens used social media services to coordinate, communicate, expose, and respond to the oppressive forces that would crush pockets of resistance. The period known as the Arab Spring…

Everyone under the age of 20 who has grown up in North America has lived in the common market created by NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a zone linking the United States, Canada, and Mexico, most goods and investments flow freely across borders to users, consumers, and investors. In 1994, NAFTA created the largest relatively…

Just three years since it broke away from Sudan, the new country of South Sudan is embroiled in a violent civil war. This article examines what went wrong and why, by discussing the incredible difficulty of building a new nation from scratch following years of conflict, war, suspicion, and great expectations. How this tragedy will end is…

2015 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. For Americans, this iconic document is a formative element of our own legal and political heritage. This "Lessons on the Law" column offers an overview of the "Great Charter," why it is significant, and what students and teachers should know about it. The article also highlights…

Most world history books feature the successes of the Roman Empire during the first and second centuries. During the third and fourth centuries, they turn to the events leading up to the empire's collapse. Explanations of the Roman Empire's decline and fall often cite external military threats, governmental failure and instability,…

Many national anthem lyrics focus on struggle and war between nations. Some, such as "The Star Spangled Banner," focus on a single battle or incident, like the War of 1812. Others stress the bravery, strength, and courage of the soldiers and sometimes the entire nation. Other anthems, such as Brazil's, focus on the beauty and…

Guilds are defined as associations of craftsmen and merchants formed to promote the economic interests of their members as well as to provide protection and mutual aid. As both business and social organizations, guilds were prolific throughout Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Guilds were organized so that workers would learn…

In this article, the author presents a truer picture than economic historians have previously had of the economies of Tokugawa Japan, and Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Though substantially different, both societies were prosperous compared to most of the rest of the world. Japan's economic success began in the Tokugawa period…

William Tolley, a teaching fellow with the Choices Program, is the Learning and Innovation Coach and head of history at the International School of Curitiba, Brazil (IB). He writes in this article that he has found that the "Competing Visions of Human Rights" teaching unit, developed by Brown University's Choices Program, provides a…

The world economy and political map changed dramatically between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Unprecedented trade linked the continents together and set off a European scramble to discover new resources and markets. European ships and merchants reached across the world, and their governments followed after them, inaugurating the…

There is much that can be learned from a curriculum developed in The Netherlands, a country famous for having been "claimed from the sea." Nothing can be truer than that, but there is more to the story than just the physical aspect of claiming land from the water. The identity of the Dutch, the history of their maritime and seafaring…

This article represents the third in a "ghost story" series by the same authors. Readers may recall that Mr. Bernanke was "visited" by the ghosts of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes in the March/April 2010 issue of "Social Education" as these two famous economists debated the economic recovery (see EJ878912). Mr.…

This article presents an economic perspective of the institution of slavery in the context of world and American history. Slavery has existed on all continents and in many societies. Its existence has long been controversial and, in the case of the United States, ended only as the result of a long and destructive war. Slavery as an institution was…