class x history - 4 the making of the global world

04/15/2023 [email protected] 1

THE MAKING OF THE

GLOBAL WORLD

Vinod Pralhad Sonawane


• ‘Globalisation’ started with trade, migration of people in search of work and the movement of capital.

• The ‘Silk Route’ are good examples of pre-modern trade and the cultural links between remote parts of the world.

• The ‘Silk Route’ were the routes through which trade and cultural mingling of far flung parts of the world took place. China was known for the trade of the silk since ancient period.


• Chinese silk cargoes used to travel through these routes and from there it got its name ‘silk routes’.

• Later Chinese pottery, textiles and spices from India and Southeast Asia also travelled the same routes. In return, precious metals like gold and silver flowed from Europe to Asia.

• Trade and cultural exchange always went hand in hand. Several silk routes helped in linking Asia with Europe and N Africa.

• Buddhism which emerged from eastern India also spread the same routes through interconnecting points of the silk route.


• Food is a good example of long distance cultural exchange.

• Traders and travellers introduced new crops of the land they travelled.

• For instance, spaghetti and noodles. It is believed that noodles travelled West from China to become spaghetti. Pasta of Arab travelled to Italy.

• Many of our common food such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chillies, sweet potatoes were introduced in Europe and Asia after America was discovered.


• For centuries before, the Indian Ocean had known a vibrant trade with goods, people, knowledge, customs, etc.

• But the introduction of new sea route to Asia found by European sailors in the sixteenth century adversely affected the trade through Indian Ocean.


• By the mid-sixteenth century Europe defeated America.

• The European conquests was not just a result of superior fire power, in fact it were the germs such as those of small pox that they carried on their person that killed America’s original inhabitants on a large scale.

• These people had had no immunity against these diseases. Small pox in particular proved to be a deadly killer. It devastated the whole community, thus paving the way for European conquest.


• Three types of movements or ‘flows’ were identified by the economist within international economic exchanges.

The flow of trade(trade in goods)The flow of labour (migration)The movement of capital

(investment)• All the three flows were closely

interlinked and affected peoples’ life.


• The nineteenth century Britain lacked self sufficiency in food. It was because of the uncontrolled growth of population and expansion of urban centres and industries. As a result –

Prices of food grains increasedPeople started importing food from

other countries where it was cheaper.The government restricted the

import of corn under the provision of laws called ‘Corn laws’.


• The industrialist and urban dwellers opposed the corn laws and demanded their abolition. Finally the corn laws were abolished which brought a lot of changes in the British economy.

• Food could be imported in Britain at much cheaper rate than before.

• British agriculture failed to compete with imports.

• Vast areas of land were left uncultivated.• Thousands of men and women became

unemployed.• This led to migration of people to the

cities or overseas


• As food prices fell, the consumption in Britain rose. It further led to faster industrial growth in Britain, higher incomes and more food imports. To meet the high demand of Britain several steps were taken.

• Lands were cleared and food production was expanded in Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia.


• Railways were needed to link agricultural regions to the ports.

• New harbours were built and old ones were expanded to ship the new cargoes.

• New homes and settlements were built to settle the workers.

• Capital flowed from financial capital like London.

• The demand of labour led to more migration. (Nearly 50 million people emigrated from Europe to America and Australia in the nineteenth century)


• Thus by the 1890, a global agricultural economy started with some complex changes in labour movement patterns, capital flows ecologies and technology.

• Food was now brought from thousands of miles away.

• It was grown by agricultural workers on lands after clearing the forests.

• Lands were cultivated not by peasants owning this land but by hired workers brought from distant lands.

• Railways, ships, new ports, etc were introduced or built for transportation.

• Food was transported by railways and by ships.• The workers were paid very low and were from

Asia, Africa or the Caribbean.


• Some changes occurred in Punjab also. Irrigation canals were built by the British Indian government to transform desert lands into fertile agricultural lands in order to grow wheat and cotton for export.

• The Canal Colonies were settled by peasants from other parts of Punjab. Cotton cultivation expanded worldwide to feed the British textile mills.


The Role of Technology • The important inventions like the

railways, steamships and the telegraph triggered economic growth in the nineteenth century.

• Colonisation stimulated new investments and improvement in transport: faster railways, lighter wagons and large ships helped move food cheaply and quickly from faraway farms to the final markets.


• Meat which was an expensive luxury beyond the reach of the European poor became affordable and its demand increased.

• Development of new technology namely refrigerated ships made this possible. Animals were now slaughtered for food at the starting point (America, Australia or New Zealand)and then transported to Europe as frozen meat.

• This reduced shipping costs and lowered meat prizes.


Late Nineteenth Early Colonialism• Late 19th century Europe conquests

produced many painful economic, social and ecological changes through which the colonised societies were brought into the world economy.

• In 1885, the big European powers met in Berlin to complete the carving up of Africa between them.

• Britain and France made vast additions, Germany and Belgium became new colonial powers.

• The US also became a colonial power in the late 1890’s


Rinderpest or the Cattle Plague• In the 1880’s, in Africa Rinderpest, a

fast spreading disease of the cattle had a terrifying impact on the people’s livelihoods and the local economy.

• Rinderpest killed 90 percent of the cattle. The loss of cattle destroyed African livelihoods.

• It strengthened colonial governments power and Africans were forced into the labour market.

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Indentured labour – Migration from India• Migration from India started in the 19th

century.• Thousands of Indian and Chinese labour

migrated to work in plantations, in mines and in road and railway construction project around the world.

• Most of the Indians were hired under contracts for five years in the Caribbean Islands, Mauritius and Fiji.

• They came from the present day eastern UP, Bihar, Central India and dry districts of Tamil Nadu.04/15/2023


• Indenture labour was nothing but a new system of slavery.

• Living and working conditions were harsh with few legal rights.

• But workers discovered their own way of surviving. They developed new forms of individual and collective self expression by blending different cultural forms.

• For eg. In Trininad the annual Muharram procession became a riotous carnival called ‘Hosay’ for Imam Hussian in which workers of all religions and races joined.


• Most indentured labours preferred to stay back after their contracts ended.

• For eg. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarvan etc. Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul.

• India’s nationalist leaders opposed the system of indenture labour calling it abusive and cruel and after a long wait it was abolished in 1921.


Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad : • With the increase in demand of growing

food and other crops the need of capital arose.

• Large plantations borrowed it from banks and markets. But the poor farmers couldn't do so.

• Shikaripuri Shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars were amongst the many groups of bankers and traders who financed export agriculture in Central and southeast Asia, using either their own funds or those borrowed from European banks.


• They had a sophisticated system to transfer money over large distances and developed indigenous forms of corporate organisations.


Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global system –

• Due to the economic policy of the British imposition of tariffs on cloth imports into Britain the inflow of fine Indian cotton began to decline and British manufacturers flooded the Indian market.

• Food grain and raw material export from India to Britain and rest of the world increased.

• The value of British export to India was much more higher than the value of British imports from India.


• Thus, Britain had a trade a trade surplus with India.

• Britain used this trade surplus to balance trade deficit with other countries – that is with countries from which Britain was importing more than it was selling to.

• Thus India played a crucial role in the late nineteenth century world economy by helping Britain balance its defecit.


The Interwar Economy –• The impact of the World War I on the

world was widespread. • During this period the whole world

experienced economic ad political instability and another disastrous war.

• It was the first modern industrial war as it saw the use of machine guns, tanks, aircrafts, chemical weapons etc on a large scale.


• The scale of death and destruction was beyond imagination. Household income declined.

• After the war Britain failed to recapture its earlier position of dominance in the Indian market and to compete with Japan internationally.

• Britain had a huge debt, borrowed from US.

• Unemployment increased because of the closure of many industries.

• Agricultural economies were also in crisis.


• Wheat production in Canada, America and Australia expanded dramatically and declined in Eastern Europe.

• Grain prices fell, rural incomes declined and farmers fell in to debt.

• However, recovery was quicker in America. The war helped boost the US economy.

• One important feature of the US economy was ‘Mass Production’.

• A well known pioneer of ‘Mass Production’ was Henry Ford.

• The housing and consumer boom in the 1920s created the basis of US prosperity.


The Great Depression –• The Great Depression began from

1929 and lasted till the mid 1930s.• During this period agricultural

production, employment, incomes and trade declined drastically.

• Agricultural regions and economies were the worst affected.

• This was because of the fall of agricultural prices than the prices of industrial goods.


• When the crisis started US began to withdrew loans which affected the rest of the world.

• Several major banks failed and currencies collapsed such as the British pound sterling.

• In Latin America the agricultural and raw material prices declined.

• In order to protect its economy US doubled the import duties which gave a severe blow to the world trade.


• Indian exports and imports nearly halved between 1928 and 1934.

• Prices in India fell terribly.• Between 1928 and 1934, wheat prices

fell by 50 percent.• Though agricultural prices fell sharply

but colonial government did not reduce revenue demands. It eventually affected the peasants.

• The depression proved less grim for urban India. Middle class salaried employees found themselves better off.


• US banks cut the domestic lending and called back loans.

• As a result, farmers failed to sell their harvests, household ruined and business collapsed. Thus the Great Depression affected the society, politics and international relations.

• The impact of the Great Depression was widespread. In the nineteenth century, as colonial India was an exporter of agricultural goods and importer of manufacturers , Indian trade immediately got affected due to the Great Depression.


• The Second World War was fought between the Axis powers (JIG) and the Allied powers (BFRA), it continued for six years. It caused enormous destruction and 60 million people killed and millions injured.

• In order to preserve economic stability and full employment in the industrial world, the post war economic system was established.

• To execute the same, the United Nations monetary and Financial Conference was held in July 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, USA.


• The Bretton Woods conference established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with external surpluses and shortages of its member nations.

• The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) was set up to finance postwar reconstruction.

• The IMF and the World Bank are referred to as Bretton Woods Institutions or sometimes the Bretton Woods Twins.


• Decision making authority was given to the Western Industrial Powers. The US was given the right to Veto over key IMF and World Bank decisions.

• The Bretton Woods system was based on fixed exchange rates.

• The Bretton Woods system opened a new era of unique growth of trade and incomes for the western industrial nations and Japan. World trade grew annually with stability and without large fluctuations.


• Developing countries invested in large amounts of capital, importing industrial plant and equipment featuring modern technology.

• After the Second World War, many parts of the world were still under colonial rule and it took over two decades to decolonise Asia and Africa.

• When they became free they faced many problems such as poverty, lack of resources.


• The IMF and the World Bank were designed to meet the financial needs of the industrial countries and so no attention was paid towards the newly Independent Asian and African countries.

• As most of the developing countries were not much benefited from the fast growth they formed a group called ‘The Group of 77 (G-77).

• They demanded a New International Economic Order(NIEO) with actual control over their natural resources.


• Their other demands were more developmental assistance, fairer prices for raw materials and better access to their manufactured goods in developed countries markets.

• The Bretton Woods ultimately ended and globalisation began.

• Multinational Corporations are large companies that operate in several countries at the same time.

• The first MNC’s were established in the 1920’s . Its spread world wide in the 1950’s and 60’s.

• Now most of the MNC’s have shifted their attention towards India and China because of the cheap labour and huge market in these countries.


Thank you … Have a nice day

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class x history - 4 the making of the global world

Education

silk routes

vibrant trade

chinese silk cargoes

migration of people

southeast asia

corn laws

common food

cultural links