The making of a global world: 10th SST

Question: Mention the impact of the First World War on agricultural economies.

Answer:

1. The agricultural economies also suffered because of First World War.
2. Before the War. Eastern Europe was a major supplier of wheat in the world market.
3. When this supply was disrupted during the First World War. wheat production of Canada. America and Australia expanded dramatically. But once the War was over, production in Eastern Europe revived and created a glut in the wheat output. Grain prices fell, rural income declined and farmers fell deeper into debt.

Question: ‘The First World War was modern industrial war’. Explain.
Or
Explain how the First World War was so horrible a war like none other before.
Or
How far is it correct to say that “The First World Wax was the First modem industrial war”? Explain.

Answer:

1. The First World War saw the use of machine guns, tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc. on a massive scale.
2. These were all increasingly products of modern large-scale industry. To fight the war. millions of soldiers had to be recruited from around the world. and moved to the front lines on large ships and trains.
3. The scale of death and destruction – 9 million dead and 20 million injured – was unthinkable before the industrial age, without the use of industrial arms.

Question: “The First World War was fought between two power blocs” Explain.

Answer: The First World War was fought from 1914 – 1918. 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.

Question: What was mass production? Explain its impact on the world economy of earlier 20th century.

Answer: Production of goods on large-scale with the help of machines is known as mass production.Impact:

1. Mass production lowered costs and prices of engineered goods Thanks to higher wages, more workers could now afford to purchase durable consumer goods such as cars. Car production in US rose from 2 million in 1919 to more than 5 million in 1929.
2. The demand for refrigerators, washing machines, etc. was also fuelled by a boom in house construction and home ownership, financed once again by loans.
3. The housing and consumer boom of the 1920s created the basis of prosperity in the US. Large investments in housing and household goods seemed to create a cycle of higher employment and incomes, rising consumption demand, more investment, and yet more employment and incomes.

Question: Write any three factors responsible for indentured labour migration from India.

Answer:

1. Most Indian indentured workers came from the present day regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Bihar. Central India and the dry- districts of Tamil Nadu. In the mid-nineteenth century these regions experienced many changes – cottage industries declined, land rents rose, lands were cleared for mines and plantations. All this affected the lives of the poor, they failed to pay then rents, became deeply indebted.
2. On the other hand workers were required in other countries for plantations, mines, road and railway construction projects.
3. In hope for better future in other countries many workers from India started migrated in other countries.

Question: What was the importance of Silk Routes?
Or
How did Silk Routes link the world? Explain with three suitable examples.
Or
Explain any three characteristics of Silk Routes.
Or
Enumerate the importance of Silk Routes.

Answer:

1. The silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modem trade and cultural links between the distant parts of the world.
2. The silk route was used by the Chinese traders to export silk to other countries.
3. These routes were used by traders to trade goods from one country to another.
4. Trade and cultural exchange always went hard in hand. Early Christian missionaries almost certainly travelled through this route to Asia, as did the early Muslim preachers, a few centuries later.
5. These routes were also used to spread religions Buddhism emerged from eastern India to spread ir. several directions through intersecting points on the silk routes.

Question: Explain the impacts of scrapping of the Corn Law.
Or
What was the result of the abolishing of Corn Laws?

Answer:

1. The scrapping of Corn Laws lead to free trade of food grains.
2. After the abolition of Corn Laws, food could be imported into Britain more cheaply than it could be produced within the country.
3. British farmers were unable to compete with imports. Vast areas of land were now left uncultivated, and thousands of men and women were thrown out of work. They flocked to the cities or migrated overseas.
4. Increase in demand due to fall in prices and increase in income leads to mismatch between demand and supply of food grains.
5. Many countries of the world like Russia. America and Australia and some eastern European countries started exporting food grains to Britain which gave further set back to the local producers.

Question: ‘By 1890, a global agricultural economy had taken shape.’ Explain by giving example.
Or
Describe any three changes in the global agricultural economy after 1890.

Answer:

1. Food and other products: Food and Other products started flowing from far away places. It was no longer grown by a peasant tilling his own land, but by an agricultural worker, perhaps recently arrived, who was now working on a large farm that only a generation ago. had perhaps been a forest.
2. Infrastructure: The food and other products being transported by railways bud for that very purpose and by ships which were increasingly manned in these decades by low paid workers from southern Europe Asia Africa and the Caribbean Islands
3. Raw materials: Indian farmers were producing raw cotton and other farm products to British industry. World trade between 1820 and 1914 multiplied about 25 to 40 times.
4. Scrapping of Corn Law: The scrapping of the Corn Laws laid the foundation of free trade. Now food could be imported or exported into Britain freely.
5. Commercialisation of agriculture in colonies: The imperial countries took various steps to commercialise agriculture in their colonies. For example. British government built a network of irrigation canals to transform semi desert waste land of West Punjab into fertile agricultural land.

Question: “The example of indentured labour migration from India and other parts of the world illustrates the two-sided nature of the 19th century” world.” Explain by giving examples.
Or
Why 19th century indentured has been described as a ‘new system of slavery’? Explain.

Answer:

1. It was a world of faster economic growth as well as greater misery, higher income for some, and poverty for others, technological advances in some areas, and new forms of exploitation in others.In India, indentured labourers were hired under contracts which promised the return travel to India, after they had worked for five years on their employer’s plantation.
2. Most of the indentured workers migrated in hope for a bright future, but they were exploited by the recruiting agent and by the employer. (i). They had to pay a commission to the recruiting agent. (ii). The agents used to provides false information to the workers regarding their final destination, modes of travel, the nature of work and living and working conditions. (iii). Sometimes, agents even forcibly abducted less willing migrants.

Question: ‘The indentured workers had discovered their own ways of surviving.” Explain.
Or
How did the indentured labourers maintain their cultural identity in other part of the world?

Answer:

1. Many of the indentured labourers escaped into the jungles.
2. They started celebrating festivals like Hosay in which both the Hindus and Muslims, who had migrated from India participated.
3. Many of the migrants joined or became part of the Rastafarianism, ie. a religious movement born out of black slums of Jamaica.
4. They started creating their own way of enjoyment like Chutney Music. The Chutney Music has beer, created by Indo- Caribbean people. The Music derives elements from Indian film songs.
5. They developed a new culture which was a blend of the new culture and the traditional culture of the indentured labourers.

Question: Explain the impact of the First World War on Britain.
Or
How did the First World War change the economic life of the people in Britain? Explain.
Or
Describe in brief the world economic conditions of the post First World War period.

Answer:

1. The post-war economic recovery proved difficult as the heavy expenditure on the World War I weakened the British economy.
2. While Britain was preoccupied with war, industries had development in Japan and India. So now Britain had to face competition from these countries, especially from Japan.
3. To finance war expenditures. Britain had borrowed liberally from the United States (US). This meant that at the end of the war. Britain was burdened with huge external debts.
4. The war had led to an economic boom, i.e., to a large increase in demand, production, prices and employment. When the war boom ended production contracted, employment and unemployment increased.
5. The economic hardship of the war period forced the people of British colonies against them. For example. Non-Cooperation movement was launched in India.