JAC Class 10 Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 The Making of Global World

→ Human societies have become steadily more interlinked.

Travellers, traders, priests and pilgrims travelled vast distances for carrying goods, money, ideas, skills, inventions and even germs and diseases.
Indus Valley Civilisation was linked with present West Asia. Cowries was a form of currency from the Maldives.

→ Silk Routes Link the World:

The Silk routes proved to be a great source of trade and cultural link between distinct parts of the world.
The silk routes were regarded as the most important routes linking the distant parts of the world.
These routes existed even before the Christian Era and flourished till the 15th century.
The Buddhist preachers, Christian missionaries and later on Muslim preachers used to travel by these routes.
Food Travels: Food offers many examples of long distance cultural exchange. Foods like potatoes, soya, maize, etc., were not known to our ancestors.

→ Conquest, Disease and Trade:

The world shrank in the 16th century after the European sailors found a sea route to Asia and America.
The Indian subcontinent had been known for bustling trade with goods, people, customs and knowledge. It was a crucial point in their trade network.
After the discovery of America, its vast lands, abundant crops and minerals began to transform trade and lives everywhere.
Precious metals, particularly silver from mines located in Peru and Mexico enhanced Europe’s wealth and financed its trade with Asia.
The Portuguese and Spanish conquest and colonisation of America was underway.
The most powerful weapon of the Spanish conquerors was not a conventional military weapon but germs of small pox which they carried.
America’s original inhabitants had no immunity against such types of diseases.

→ A World Economy Takes Shape:

Abolition of the com law.
Under pressure from the landowners’ groups, the government restricted the import of foodgrains.
After the com laws were scrapped, food could be imported into Britain more cheaply than it could be produced in the country.
British farmers were unable to compete with imports. Vast areas of land were left uncultivated.
As food prices fell, consumption in Britain rose.
Faster industrial growth in Britain led to higher incomes and more food imports.

→ The Role of Technology:

Technology had a great impact on the transformation of the 19th century world such as railways, steamship and telegraph.
Technological advances were often the results of social, political and economic factors.
The refrigerated ships helped to transport the perishable food items over a long distance.
It facilitated the shipment of frozen meat from America, Australia or New Zealand to different European countries.

→ The Nineteenth Century (1815 to 1914)

In the 19th century, economic, political, social, cultural and technological factors interacted in complex ways to transform societies and reshape external relations by European cqnquests.
Rinderpest or the cattle plague: It was carried by infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed Italian soldiers. Rinderpest killed 90% of the cattle and destroyed African livelihoods.
Meaning of ‘Indentured labour’ – ‘Indentured labour’ means labour by a bonded labourer under contract to Work for an employer for a specific period of time.
It brought higher income for some and poverty for others.
In the 19th century indenture was described as a new system of slavery.
Living conditions were harsh but workers discovered their own ways to survive.
- Indian bankers financed export agriculture in Central and South-East Asia
- Britain had ‘Trade surplus’ with India- Value of British exports were bigger than the value of imports from India.

→ The Inter War Economic:

The First World War was mainly fought in Europe.
During this time, the world experienced economic and political instabilities and another miserable war.
The First World War was fought between ; two power blocs. On the one hand were the allies – Britain, France, Russia and later joined the US, and on the opposite side- Germany, Austria, Hungary, Ottoman and Turkey.
This war lasted for four years.

→ Technological Transformations:

Modem industrial war- First-time modem weapons like machine guns, tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc., were used on a massive scale.
Millions of soldiers had to be recruited from around the world, and most of them were men of working age.
British borrowed large sums from US banks.
The war transformed the US from being an international debtor to an international creditor.
US recovery was quicker after the war.
Important feature of the US economy of 1920’s was mass production.

→ The Great Depression:
Factors responsible for depression

Agricultural overproduction made the price of agriculture products slumping.
Many countries financed their investment through the loan they got from the USA.
American capitalists stopped all loans to European countries.
In Europe, it led to a failure of some major banks and collapse of currencies like Sterling.
Doubling the import duties by the USA, which hit the world trade badly.

→ Bretton Woods Institutions:

To deal with external surpluses and deficits a conference was held in July 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, the USA.
International Monetary Fund and World Bank were set up to finance post war restructuring.
The post war international economic system is known as Bretton Woods system.
This system was based on fixed exchange rates.
IMF and World Bank are referred to as Bretton Woods Twins.
The US has an effective right of veto over key IMF and World Bank.

→ Decolonisation and Independence:

Most developing countries did not benefit from the fast growth of Western economies in the 1950s and 60s.
They organised themselves as a group, the group of 77 or G-77 to demand a New International Economic Order (NIEO).
- The relQcation of industry to low wage countries stimulated world trade and capital flow.
- Because of New economic policy, china became a favourite destination for the MNCs to invest.
It was a system that would give them real control over their natural resources, more development assistance, fairer prices for I raw materials and better access for their manufactured goods in developed countries, markets.
In last two decades, the economy of the world has changed a lot as countries like China, India and Brazil have achieved rapid economic development.

→ End of Bretton Woods and the Beginning of ‘Globalisation’

The US dollar could not maintain in relation to gold
It led collapse of the system of fixed exchange rates and introduction of floating exchange rates.
1970’s MNCs also started shifting production to low-wage countries.
The relocation of industries to low wage countries stimulated the world trade and capital flow.