This edition focuses on the phenomenon of globalization. This perspective has been prompted in large part by the almost worldwide financial crisis that began in Southeast Asia in 1997, swept much of Asia in the following year, and rocked Russia in 1998. The authors anticipate that social and political unrest and impacts on the global exchange of ideas, goods, and services prompted by this economic turmoil will have long-lived effects. Students, therefore, will benefit greatly from the currency of this text.