ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on increasing global interactions during the early modern period, now actively including the Americas. Exchanges included diseases – with disastrous effects on the Americas; foods, ultimately helping to spur global population increase; and trade levels. New kinds of organizations were introduced to handle interregional trade. Consumerism advanced, but work intensified in many ways as well. Regional responses varied, but a number of areas became enmeshed in patterns of economic inequality that would leave a lasting mark.
