On this page, you will find NCERT Class 10 History Chapter 4 Notes Pdf free download. CBSE Class 10 Social Science Notes History Chapter 4 SST The Making of Global World will seemingly, help them to revise the important concepts in less time.
The Making of Global World Class 10 Notes Social Science History Chapter 4
CBSE Class 10 History Chapter 4 Notes Understanding the Lesson
1. The global world in which we are living today has not emerged overnight. It has a long history- of trade, of migration, of people in search of work, the movement of capital, and much else. By and by, human societies became steadily more interlinked.
2. The silk routes played an important role in the making of a global world. These routes knitted together vast regions of Asia and linked Asia with Europe and northern Africa. They are known to have existed since before the Christian Era and thrived almost till the fifteenth century.
3. Food became a means of long-distance cultural exchange. Traders and travellers introduced new crops to the lands they travelled. Many of our common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, etc. were only introduced in Europe and Asia after Christopher Columbus discovered the vast continent which later came to be known as the Americas or America comprising North America, South America and the Caribbean.
4. Before its discovery, America had been cut off from regular contact with the rest of the world for millions of years. But from the sixteenth century, its vast lands and abundant crops and minerals began to transform trade and lives everywhere. This tempted the Portuguese and Spanish conquerors. But when they arrived in America, they also carried the germs of smallpox on their person. This disease killed and decimated the whole communities of America and paved the way for its conquest.
5. Until the nineteenth century, poverty and hunger were common in Europe. Hence, thousands fled Europe for America. Slowly and steadily Americas’ importance grew and the centre of world trade moved westward. Europe now emerged as the centre of world trade.
6. The world changed profoundly in the nineteenth century. Economists identify three types of flows – the flow of trade, the flow of labour and the flow of capital within international economic exchanges. All three flows were closely interwoven and affected peoples’ lives.
7. The nineteenth-century Britain lacked self-sufficiency in food because of tremendous population growth. As a result, food grain prices were pushed up compelling people to import cheaper food from other countries. The government introduced the ‘Corn Laws’ to put a check on this trend. But these laws could not last long. They were abolished which brought striking changes in the British economy.
8. Food began to be imported into Britain more cheaply than it could be produced within the country. British agriculture was 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 in search of a better future.
9. The nineteenth-century world was a complete global world. The technological advances played a major role in it. Faster railways, lighter wagons and larger ships helped move food more cheaply and quickly from far way farms to final markets.
10. The expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the world economy resulted in the loss of freedoms and livelihoods in many parts of the world. It happened because many European countries began to colonise overseas territories in the late nineteenth century. The US also became a colonial power in the late 1890s by taking over some colonies earlier held by Spain. The colonialism left destructive impact on the economy and livelihoods of colonized people.
11. Africa had abundant land and mineral resources. For centuries, land and livestock sustained African livelihoods and people rarely worked for a wage. In the late nineteenth century, Europeans came to Africa and established plantations and mines to produce crops and minerals for export to Europe. But they faced problems of shortage of labour.
12. Rinderpest, a devastating cattle disease, arrived in Africa in the late 1880s. The disease killed 90 percent of the cattle. The loss of cattle destroyed African livelihoods. It proved a blessing for the colonial governments. They forced Africans into the labour market.
13. In the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indian and Chinese labourers went to work on plantations in mines and in road and railway construction projects around the world. These labourers, known as indentured labourers, were forced to live in harsh conditions on the plantations.
14. With industrialization, British cotton manufacture began to expand. This caused decline in the inflow of fine Indian cotton. From the early nineteenth century, British manufacturers also began to seek overseas markets for their cloth. Excluded from the British markets by tariff barriers, Indian textiles now faced stiff competition in other international markets.
15. On the one hand, exports of Indian cotton textiles declined rapidly while on the other hand, export of raw materials increased at fast pace. Over the nineteenth century, British manufacturers flooded the Indian markets. Food grain and raw material exports from India to Britain and the rest of the world increased. But the value of British export to India was much higher than the value of British imports from India. Britain used this surplus to balance its trade deficits with other countries. By helping Britain balance its deficits, India played a crucial role in the late nineteenth-century world economy.
16. During the First World War, the world experienced widespread economic and political instability. The war led to the snapping of economic links between some of the world’s largest economic powers which were now fighting each other to pay for them.
17. Post-war economic recovery was a difficult task. Britain, which was the world’s leading economy in the pre-war period, in particular, faced a prolonged crisis due to huge external debts. The US, however, recovered quickly. The war helped boost the US economy. One important feature of the US economy of the 1920s was mass production. Henry Ford, a pioneer of mass production recovered the high wages by repeatedly speeding up the production line and forcing workers to work even harder. Car production in the US rose which improved its economy.
18. The Great Depression (1929-1930s) had terrifying effects on the world economy. Production, employment, incomes, trade-all declined catastrophically. Agricultural regions and communities were worst affected. Several factors were responsible for the Great Depression. Agricultural overproduction and withdrawal of US loans were major factors.
19. The Indian economy was also affected badly. India’s exports and imports nearly halved between 1928 and 1934. Wheat prices fell by 50 percent during this period. Peasants and farmers suffered more than urban dwellers who had fixed incomes in the form of salary.
20. The Second World War which broke out in 1939 crushed the world once again. At least 60 million peo- pie are believed to have been killed, directly or indirectly, as a result of the war. The war also caused an immense amount of economic devastation and social disruption. Once again the reconstruction of world economy proved to be a difficult task.
21. Two crucial influences shaped post-war reconstruction. The first was the US’s emergence as the dominant economic, political and military power in the western world and the second was the dominance of the Soviet Union.
22. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or the World Bank was set up to finance post-war reconstruction. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established to deal with external surpluses and deficits of its member nations. The IMF and the World Bank are referred to as the Bretton Woods Institutions. The post-war international economic system is also described as the Bretton Woods system.
23. The Bretton Woods system played an important role in boosting up the world trade which grew annually at over 8 percent between 1950 and 1970 and incomes at nearly 5 percent. From the late 1950s the Bretton Woods institutions began to shift their attention more towards developing countries.
24. Since the developing countries had no real control over their natural resources, so they organized themselves as a group, known as the Group of 77 (or G-77). They demanded a new international economic order (NIEO) which would give them more development assistance, fairer prices for raw materials, and better accessibility of manufactured goods in international markets etc.
25. The Bretton Woods system ended and globalization started with the setting up of MNCs. These MNCs increased employment opportunities to a great extent.
The Making of Global World Class 10 CBSE Notes Important Terms
Globalization: The process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture.
Silk Route: It refers to a network of ancient trade routes connecting Asia, Europe and Africa.
Dissenter: One who refuses to accept established beliefs and practices. ;
Colonialism: The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
Rinderpest: A devastating cattle disease which arrived in Africa in the late 1880s and killed 90 percent of the cattle.
Indentured Labour: A bonded labourer under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount of time, to pay off his passage to a new country or home.
Tariff: Tax imposed on a country’s imports from the rest of the world.
Exchange Rates: They link national currencies for purposes of international trade. They are of two kinds-fixed exchange rate and floating exchange rate.
Fixed Exchange Rates: When exchange rates are fixed and governments intervene to prevent movements in them.
Flexible or Floating Exchange Rates: These rates fluctuate depending on demand and supply of currencies in foreign exchange markets, in principle without interference by governments.
Decolonization: Undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over dependent territories.
Trade Surplus: A situation under which the value of exports is much higher than the value of imports.
Notes of History Class 10 Chapter 4 Time Period
1845-1849: The Great Potato Famine
1890’s: The US became a colonial power.
1890’s: Cattle Plague or Rinderpest spread.
1914-18: The First World War
1920’s: The US economy resumed its strong growth between 1928 to 1934 – India’s exports and imports really halved.
1929: The Great Depression began.
1944: United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, USA
1947: The IMF and the World Bank began financial operations.
1970’s: Multinational companies began to shift production operations to low-wage Asian countries.