History of the Atlantic Economies in the Early Modern Era

The Atlantic Ocean, once a barrier separating three continents and their distinct societies, transformed between the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries into a vast arena of economic exchange, exploitation, and innovation. This book examines how Europe, Africa, and the Americas became integrated into a single economic system that fundamentally reshaped human history. The period from approximately 1450 to 1800 witnessed the creation of new patterns of production, trade, and consumption that connected distant peoples and places in unprecedented ways. Silver mined in the Andes purchased silk in China, sugar grown by enslaved Africans in Brazil sweetened European coffee, and guns manufactured in Birmingham found their way to West African merchants who exchanged them for human captives. These connections, forged through violence and commerce alike, laid the foundations for the modern global economy.