Notes of Chapter 4 - The Making of a Global World - Class 10 PDF Download

Introduction

• Globalisation is an economic system associated with the free movement of goods, technology, ideas and people across the globe.

Section I: Pre Modern World

Silk Routes

• There are several silk routes, over land and by sea, knitting together vast regions of Asia, and linking Asia with Europe and northern Africa.

→ Famous Chinese silk cargoes used to travel through these routes.

Food Travels: Spaghetti and Potato

• Noodles travelled west from China to become spaghetti.

• Common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chillies, sweet potatoes were only introduced in Europe and Asia after Christopher Columbus discovered Americas.

Conquest, Disease and Trade

• Precious metals from mines of Peru and Mexico enhanced European trade with Asia.

• The Spanish conquerors used the germs of smallpox in the conquest of America.

• Until well into the eighteenth century, China and India were among the world’s richest countries.

• Until the nineteenth century, poverty and hunger were common in Europe.

Section II: The Nineteenth Century (1815-1914)

• In the late eighteenth century, growth in the population increased the demand for food grains in Britain.

• The imported food into Britain more cheaply than it could be produced within the country.

• Industrial growth took place in Britain which led to higher incomes meaning more food imports.

• It was transported by railway and by ships.

• Food is only an example. Products such as cotton, rubber, coal also had same fate.

Role of Technology

• The railways, steamships, the telegraph were important inventions that transformed nineteenth-century world.

• After the introduction of new technology, namely, refrigerated ships animals were slaughtered for food at the starting point and then transported to Europe as frozen meat.

Late nineteenth-century Colonialism

• European conquests of Asia and Africa as colonies.

• Belgium and Germany became new colonial powers.

• The US became a colonial power in the late 1890s by taking over some colonies earlier held by Spain.

Rinderpest, or the Cattle Plague

• Rinderpest is a fast spreading cattle plague which hit Africa in the late 1880s.

• It was carried by infected cattle imported from British Asia and destroyed 90 percent of the livestock.

• The colonial governments now strengthen their power and to force Africans into the labour market.

Indentured Labour Migration from India

• Indentured Labour was a bonded labourer under contract to work for an employer.

• In the nineteenth century, thousands of Indian and Chinese labourers went to work on plantations, in mines, and in road and railway construction projects around the world.

• Recruitment was done by agents by providing false information about the work and location.

• On arrival at the plantations, labourers found living and working conditions harsh.

• It was abolished in 1921.

Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad

• Indian entrepreneurs, some bankers like Nattukottai and Chettiars financed export of agriculture to Central and South-East Asia.

→ They even followed the Europeans to Africa.

• Industrial Revolution in England changed the balance of trade between England and India.

• Indian handicraft and agriculture were destroyed and Britain enjoyed a trade surplus with

India.

→ Their exports increased and imports decreased.

Section III: The Inter-war Economy

• The First World war was the first modern industrial war.

• During the war, industries were restructured to produce war-related goods.

• The war transformed the US from being an international debtor to an international creditor.

Post-war Recovery

• After the war was over, the production reduced and unemployment increased.

Rise of Mass Production and Consumption

• In the US, war recovery was quicker.

• ‘Assembly line’ method introduced by Henry Ford soon spread to the US and were also widely copied in Europe in the 1920s.

• Mass production lowered the costs and prices of engineered goods.

• There was a housing and consumer boom in the 1920s, which ultimately led to the Great Depression of 1929.

• Markets crashed in 1929 and led to the failure of banks and the crisis affected other countries.

→ By 1933, over 4000 banks closed and between 1929-32 about 110,000 companies collapsed.

India and the Great Depression

• India was also affected by the  Great  Depression.

• Indian exports and imports declined extensively, prices fell.

• Bengal jute growers suffered the most.

• Large scale migration took place from villages to towns and cities.

Section IV: Rebuilding a World Economy: The Post-war Era

• The Second World War broke out a mere two decades after the end of the First World War and once again, it led to destruction.

• After the USA and the USSR emerged as superpowers.

Post-war Settlement and the Bretton Woods Institutions

• To ensure a stable economy a framework was agreed upon at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, USA.

• It established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with external surpluses and deficits of its member nations.

• The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (popularly known as the World Bank) was set up to finance post-war reconstruction.

• The IMF and the World Bank commenced financial operations in 1947.

• Bretton Woods  System was based on a fixed exchange rate.

• National currencies were pegged to the American dollar at a fixed rate.

• Decision-making in these institutions is controlled by the Western industrial powers largely by the US.