Similarly, to previous chapters, Egerton Et. AL. discuss how the vast Atlantic trade significantly altered the societal and economic conditions of the Atlantic as a whole. The Atlantic trade shifted not only the demographics of the entirety of the Atlantic, but also the locations of major cities and peoples (Atlantic World<\/em> 225). As European powers realized the vast wealth that was present in the Americas, this shift happened more rapidly, specifically in areas such as Brazil where there was a discovery of gold (Atlantic World<\/em> 227). In shifting the economies to be more economically valuable, the authors argue that this significantly changed the social and political landscape of the Atlantic. For instance, liquor, which became more economically valuable, significantly changed Indian tribes’ culture and caused them to be a part of the commodification of goods (Atlantic World<\/em> 233).<\/p>\n A significant change in social and cultural traditions could be attributed to the change in trade, the authors argue. One of the first places this could be seen was on the coastal region of Africa, where Europeans began to mix with Africans as they traded with the regions more (Atlantic World<\/em> 259). Through both linguistics and religion, which changed significantly after European contact, it can be shown just how much the Atlantic World as a whole was changed. Africans began to change religions, which speaks to how much contact changed the region as a whole.<\/p>\n This cultural shift could clearly be seen during the slave trade, which directly tied these two ideas together. While trade alone brought changes in social and cultural values, the slave trade inevitably forced them in a much more negative manner. The authors argue that slave trade, and thus trade, created a stricter hierarchy of race (Atlantic World<\/em> 279). Marissa Cervantes<\/a> brings up the idea that the Atlantic was \u201cculturally flexible and multilingual,\u201d which is a great way of describing the Atlantic that resulted from both trade and the slave trade. As the authors of this book have previously shown, slavery caused new customs and traditions to be created where old ones could not persist.<\/p>\n