There have been a number of studies on craftsmen, artisans and guilds in recent years. Court records are full of information about the numerous guilds that functioned in towns and cities of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period. One major trend in recent scholarship has been to study guilds as part of institutional history, with a focus on the way that guild heads were appointed; the elaboration of guild rules; the various ways that they managed conflict. Another trend has explored guild relationships with state, a subject which has remained controversial and about which the views are very diverse. The present paper proposes to consider guilds in relation to the regional and global changes of the 17th and 18th centuries, which witnessed major commercial transformations as different parts of the world were tied to each other by regular maritime links. Using Cairo as an example, the paper will address the issue of whether guilds and production were influenced by the growing intensification of trade and commercialization of certain dimensions of society. Although artisans and craftsmen were closely linked to their guilds, we can see that in the period covered, that their production activities were neither entirely guild centered nor were they always following guild rules. We can link the kind of economic activities that certain craftsmen undertook, small business ventures, partnerships with other artisans or with merchants and so on, with this growing commercialization. Hence, in addition to the local context of artisans and guilds, there is also a regional and global context that could be explored. The paper will offer a few examples from recent research on this subject.