The Council on Foreign Relations has a nice collection of interactive guides to contemporary global political and economic issues. In all there are twenty-three guides in the collection. Some of the topics the guides cover are nuclear energy, the Iraq War, tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the global economy, and climate change. Each guide is divided into chapters. Each chapter contains videos, graphics, text, and timelines to help viewers understand the many layers of each issue.

Applications for Education
The Council on Foreign Relations’ interactive guides are a good example of why digital materials are replacing textbooks. Even the most recent social studies texts at my school don’t include the depth of content for the global economy, Iraq War, and most of the other issues covered by the interactive guides available from the Council on Foreign Relations.