Key Concept 4.1 Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
One of most important features of this time period is the integration of both hemispheres into the world first truly global network of trade. New technologies and methods of financing enabled trans-Atlantic trade and altered previous patterns of exchange. The ensuring new encounters spread culture, religion, new foods, and disease across the globe. Demographic changes were volatile, with some areas experiencing drastic changes because of the introduction of new foods while other areas, such as the Americas, were devastated with the introduction of new diseases.
- I. In the context of the new global circulation of goods, there was in intensification of all existing regional trade networks that brought prosperity and economic disruption to the merchants and governments in the trading regions of the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Sahara, and overland Eurasia.