Worksheet: The Making of a Global World - 1 - Social Studies (SST) Class 10

Q1. Why did Europeans flee to America in the nineteenth century? Explain. Marks 3
OR
State three reasons why Europeans fled to America in the 19th century.

Europeans fled to America in the 19th century because:

• Until the 19th century, poverty and hunger were common in Europe.
• Cities were crowded, and deadly diseases were widespread.
• Religious conflicts were common and religious dissenters were persecuted.
• Scrapping of Corn Laws, led to the inability of British agriculture to compete with imports.
• Thousands of people were left unemployed due to agricultural land lying uncultivated. So, people migrated in thousands, crossed oceans to find employment and a better future.
• In America, plantations were growing cotton and sugar for the European market. These plantations were worked on by slaves. (Any three)

Q2. "Indian trade had played a crucial role in the late nineteenth-century world economy". Analyze the statement.  Marks 5

Indian trade had played a crucial role in the late nineteenth century:

• By helping Britain balance its deficits, India played a crucial role in the late nineteenth-century world economy.
• Britain's trade surplus in India also helped pay the so-called 'home charges'.
• British manufacturers flooded the Indian market.
• Increased food grain and raw material exports from India to Britain.
• The value of British exports to India was much higher than the value of British import from India. (Any other relevant point) (Any five points to be explained.)

Detailed Answer: Indian trade played a crucial role in the late nineteenth-century world economy.
This statement can be analyzed through the following facts:

• Trade Surplus: Britain had a trade surplus with India, i.e., a situation under which the value of exports is more than the imports. Britain used this surplus to balance its trade deficit with other countries.
• Home charges: Britain's trade surplus in India also helped to pay the so-called 'home charges' that included private remittances home by British officials and traders, interest payments on India's external debts and pensions of the British officials in India.
• Major supplier of cotton: India remained a major supplier of raw cotton to Britain, which was required to feed the cotton textile industry of Britain.
• Supplier of indentured workers: Many indentured workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Central India migrated to other countries to work in mines and plantations.

Q3. Describe the economic conditions of Britain after the ‘First World War’. Marks 3
OR

Explain the impact of the First World War on the British economy. 

OR
Explain the three impacts of the First World War on the British economy.

Economic conditions of Britain after the First World War: After the First World War, Britain found it difficult to recapture its earlier position. Britain was burdened with huge external debts. The war had led to an economic boom, a large increase in demand, production and employment. When the war boom ended, production contracted and unemployment increased. At the same time, the government reduced bloated war expenditures to bring them into line with peace time revenues. These debts led to huge job losses. Many agricultural economists were also in crisis. Note: If a candidate writes in points, it is also to be considered.

Q4. Read the sources given below and answer the questions that follows:

SOURCE A: Wartime Transformations [NCERT History Ch. 3 Page 68] The First World War, as you know, was fought between two power blocs. On the one side were the Allies – Britain, France and Russia (later joined by the US); and on the opposite side were the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. When the war began in August 1914, many governments thought it would be over by Christmas. It lasted more than four years. The First World War was a war like no other before. The fighting involved the world’s leading industrial nations which now harnessed the vast powers of modern industry to inflict the greatest possible destruction on their enemies.
SOURCE B: Post-War Recovery [NCERT History Ch. 3 Page 69] Post-War economic recovery proved difficult. Britain, which was the world’s leading economy in the pre-war period, in particular faced a prolonged crisis. While Britain was preoccupied with war, industries had developed in India and Japan. After the war, Britain found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance in the Indian market, and to compete with Japan internationally. Moreover, to finance war expenditures Britain had borrowed liberally from the US. This meant that at the end of the war Britain was burdened with huge external debts. The war had led to an economic boom, that is, to a large increase in demand, production and employment. When the war boom ended, production contracted and unemployment increased. At the same time the government reduced bloated war expenditures to bring them into line with peacetime revenues. These developments led to huge job losses – in 1921 one in every five British workers was out of work. Indeed, anxiety and uncertainty about work became an enduring part of the post-war scenario.
SOURCE C: Rise of Mass-Production and Consumption [NCERT History Ch. 3 Page 69-70] In the US, recovery was quicker. We have already seen how the war helped boost the US economy. After a short period of economic trouble in the years after the war, the US economy resumed its strong growth in the early 1920s. One important feature of the US economy of the 1920s was mass production. The move towards mass production had begun in the late nineteenth century, but in the 1920s it became a characteristic feature of industrial production in the US. A well-known pioneer of mass production was the car manufacturer Henry Ford. He adapted the assembly line of a Chicago slaughterhouse (in which slaughtered animals were picked apart by butchers as they came down a conveyor belt) to his new car plant in Detroit. He realised that the ‘assembly line’ method would allow a faster and cheaper way of producing vehicles. The assembly line forced workers to repeat a single task mechanically and continuously – such as fitting a particular part to the car – at a pace dictated by the conveyor belt. This was a way of increasing the output per worker by speeding up the pace of work. Standing in front of a conveyor belt no worker could afford to delay the motions, take a break, or even have a friendly word with a workmate. As a result, Henry Ford’s cars came off the assembly line at three-minute intervals, a speed much faster than that achieved by previous methods. The T-Model Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car.

Q5. SOURCE A: Wartime Transformations
(i) Which were the two power blocs in the First World War?
SOURCE B: Post-War Recovery
(ii) Britain, which was the world's leading economy in the pre-war period, in particular faced a prolonged crisis. Comment on this statement.
SOURCE C: Rise of Mass-Production and Consumption
(iii) The 'assembly line' method would allow a faster and cheaper way of producing vehicles. How?

(i) Two power blocs in the First World War were: On the one side were the Allies – Britain, France and Russia (later joined by the US); and on the opposite side were the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey.

(ii) While Britain was preoccupied with war, industries had developed in India and Japan. After the war Britain found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance in the Indian market, and to compete with Japan internationally. Moreover, to finance war expenditures Britain had borrowed liberally from the US. This meant that at the end of the war Britain was burdened with huge external debts.

(iii) The assembly line forced workers to repeat a single task mechanically and continuously – such as fitting a particular part to the car – at a pace dictated by the conveyor belt. This was a way of increasing the output per worker by speeding up the pace of work. Standing in front of a conveyor belt no worker could afford to delay the motions, take a break, or even have a friendly word with a workmate.

Q5. Mention three reasons for the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Marks 3

• The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to meet the financial needs of the industrial countries.
• When Japan and Europe rapidly rebuilt economies, they became less dependent on the IMF and the World Bank.
• Thus, from the late 1950s the Bretton Woods institutions, World Bank and IMF, began to turn their attention towards newly developing countries.
• The newly independent countries facing problems of poverty came under the guidance of international agencies dominated by the former colonial powers. (Any three)

Q6. What do G-77 countries want to gain from the New International Economic Order? Describe. Marks 5
OR
What is G-77? What were its demands?
OR
Explain what is referred to as the G-77 countries. In what ways can G-77 be seen as a reaction to the activities of the Bretton Woods twins?

G-77 or Group of 77 refers to the seventy seven developing countries that did not benefit from the fast growth western economies experienced in 1950s and 1960s. So, they organized themselves into G-77. They demanded: 

A new international economic order that would give them real control over their natural resources.

More development assistance.

Fairer prices for raw material.

Better access for their manufactured goods in developed countries’ markets.

Analyze the information given below, considering one of the following correct options:

Q7. Consider the jute producers of Bengal. They grew raw jute that was processed in factories for export in the form of gunny bags. But as gunny exports collapsed, the price of raw jute crashed more than 60 per cent. Peasants who borrowed in the hope of better times or to increase output in the hope of higher incomes faced ever lower prices, and fell deeper and deeper into debt. Thus the Bengal jute growers’ lament: Grow more jute, brothers, with the hope of greater cash. Costs and debts of jute will make your hopes get dashed. When you have spent all your money and got the crop off the ground,… traders, sitting at home, will pay only Rs 5 a maund.
(a) The Great Depression
(b) India and the Great Depression
(c) Post-War Recovery
(d) Rise of mass Production and Consumption

(b) India and the Great Depression

Answer in one word/one sentence:

Q8. What do 'Silk Routes refer to?

Network of routes connecting Asia with Europe and Northern Africa.

Q9. Who discovered the continent of America?

Christopher Columbus.

Q10. Who was a well-known Pioneer of mass production?

Henry Ford

Fill in the blanks:

Q11. ______ was a Nobel Prize winning writer who was a descendant of indentured labour from India.

V.S. Naipaul

Q12. ______ discovered the American Continent.

Christopher Columbus

Q13. Britain and Russia were known as ______ powers in the First World War.

Allied

Q14. Explain the destruction caused during the Second World War. Mention two crucial influences which shaped post-war reconstruction. Marks 5

• Unlike earlier wars, most of the deaths took place outside the battlefields.
• More civilians than soldiers died from war.
• Vast parts of Asia and Europe were devastated.
• Cities were destroyed.
• There was an immense amount of economic devastation.

Two crucial influences:
First: U.S’s emergence as military power in the western world.
Second: Dominance of the Soviet Union.

Q15. Elucidate any three factors that led to the Great Depression. Marks 3

• Agricultural overproduction remained a problem and it was made worse by falling agricultural prices.
• As prices slumped and agricultural incomes declined, farmers tried to expand production and bring a large volume of produce to the market but it pushed down prices.
• In the mid-1920s, many countries financed their investments through loans from the US, it was extremely easy to raise loans in the US.
• But in the first half of the 1920s, countries that depend crucially on US loans faced an acute crisis.
• The withdrawal of the US loans affected the rest of the world in different ways. In Europe, it led to the failure of small major banks and the collapse of currencies such as the British Pound Sterling. (Any three)