NCERT Solutions Class 10th Social Science History Chapter – 4 The Making of a Global World Question & Answer

Q.1. Give two examples of different types of global exchanges which took place before the 17th century, choosing one example from Asia, and one from America.
?‍♂️Ans – (a) Asia – The silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade before the 17th century. The historians have identified several silk routes, overland and by sea, linking Asia with Europe and northern Africa. These routes were used for trades in Chinese pottery, textiles and spices from India and Southeast Asia.

• In return, precious metals – gold and silver – came from Europe to Asia.’ Secondly, Christian missionaries and later Muslim preachers travelled through these routes.

• It may be mentioned here that in ancient times, Buddhism too spread in several directions through intersecting points on the silk routes.

(b) Americas – After the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, many of our common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chilies came from America’s original inhabitants i.e., the American Indians.

• From the sixteenth century, America’s vast lands, abundant crops and minerals transformed trade and lives everywhere.

• Precious metals like silver from mines in Peru and Mexico enhanced Europe’s wealth and financed its trade with Asia.

• Legends spread in seventeenth-century Europe about South America’s fabled wealth. Many expeditions set off in search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. Thus there were global exchanges before the seventeenth century.

Q.2. Explain how the global transfer of disease in the pre-modem world helped in the colonisation of America. 
?‍♂️Ans – The global transfer of disease in the pre-modern world helped in the colonisation of the Americas because the native American Indians were not immune to the diseases that the settlers and colonisers brought with them.

• The Europeans were more or less immune to small pox, but the native Americans, having been cut off from the rest of the world for millions of years, had no defence against it.

• These germs killed and wiped out whole communities, paving the way for foreign domination. Weapons and soldiers could be destroyed or captured, but diseases could not be fought against.

Q.3. Write a note and explain the effects of the following :
(a) The British government’s decision to abolish the Corn Laws.
(b) The coming of rinderpest to Africa.
(c) The death of men of working-age in Europe because of the World War.
(d) The Great Depression on the Indian economy.
(e) The decision of MNCs to relocate production to Asian countries.
?‍♂️Ans – (a) The abolition of the corn law made the Britishers very easy to import corn into Britain very easily and in a very cheap rate. This is the reason why the farmers did not grow crop and the land remained uncultivated.

(b) The coming of rinderpest to Africa caused a loss of livelihood to countless Africans. The Asian Cattles spread cattle plague known as Rinderpest, when taken to Africa by the European Colonizers.

The disease was spread in the cattles and they were killed in thousands. There are was huge unemployment to the workers who worked for cattles.

(c)The first world war made many men maimed or dead.This deaths and injuries made the number of people in the family less.

(d) The Great Depression started  affecting the  Indian Trade immediately . In 20th Century India became the exporter of agricultural goods and importer of manufactured goods.

• As the international prices increased the prices in India also increased.

(e) Wages in Asian Countries are low because of supply of workers and low standard of living. This is why the MNCs relocate production to Asian Countries.

Q.4. Give two examples from history to show the impact of Science and Technology on food availability.
?‍♂️Ans – (i) Availability of cheap food in different markets – Improvements in transport; faster railways, lighter wagons and larger ships helped move food more cheaply and quickly from the far-away farms to the final markets.

(ii) Impact on meat – Till the 1870s, meat from America was shipped to Europe in the form of live animals which were then slaughtered in Europe. But live animals took up a lot of ship space.

• But the invention of refrigerated ships made it possible to transport meat from one region to another. Now animals were slaughtered in America, Australia or New Zealand, and then transported to Europe as frozen meat. The invention of the refrigerated ship had the following advantages –

• This reduced shipping costs and lowered meat prices in Europe.

• The poor in Europe could now consume a more varied diet.

• To the earlier, monotony of bread and potatoes many, not all, could add meat, butter and eggs.

• Better living conditions promoted social peace within the country, and support for imperialism abroad.

Q.5. What is meant by the Bretton Woods Agreement ?
?‍♂️Ans – The main aim of the post-war international economic system was to preserve economic stability and full employment in the industrial world.

• The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in July 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the USA agreed upon its framework. The Bretton Woods Conference established the following institutions –

International Monetary Fund – Its aim was to deal with external surpluses and deficits of its member nations.

• The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or World Bank was set “Up to finance post-war reconstruction.

• The above institutions are known as The Bretton Woods institutions or Bretton Woods twins. The post-war international economic system is also often described as the Bretton Woods system.

• It was based on fixed exchange rates. National currencies were pegged to the dollar at a fixed exchange rate. The dollar itself was anchored to gold at a fixed price of $ 35 per ounce of gold.

• The decision-making in these institutions is controlled by the western industrial powers. The US has an effective right of veto over key IMF and World Bank decisions.

Q.6. Imagine that you are an indentured Indian labourer in the Caribbean. Drawing from the details in this chapter, write a letter to your family describing your life and feelings.
?‍♂️Ans – Dear father,
‘… in spite of my best efforts, I could not properly do the works that were allotted to me … In a few days I got my hands bruised all over and I could not go to work for a week for which I was prosecuted and sent to jail for 14 days. … new emigrants find the tasks allotted to them extremely heavy and cannot complete them in a day. … Deductions are also made from wages if the work is considered to have been done unsatisfactorily. Many people cannot therefore earn their full wages and are punished in various ways. In fact, the labourers have to spend their period of indenture in great trouble …’

Your son,
XYZ

Q.7. Explain the three types of movements or flows within the international economic exchange. Find one example of each type of flow which involved India and Indians, and write a short account of it. 

Or

Explain the three types of flows within an international economic exchange by giving anyone example each. 
?‍♂️Ans – Examples – each type of flow from India and Indians –

(i)Trade in goods – Here the British Indian government built a network of irrigation canals to transform semi-desert wastes into fertile agricultural lands that could grow wheat and cotton for export.

• The Canal Colonies, as the areas irrigated by the new canals were called, were settled by peasants from other parts of Punjab. Britain took wheat and cloth-cotton, silken and woollen of extraordinary quality and having demand in European countries from India. 

(ii)Migration of people in search of employment – In the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indian labourers went to work on plantations, in mines, and in road and railway construction projects around the world.

(iii)Short and long term investments over long distances – Hyderabadi Sindhi traders ventured beyond European colonies.

• From the 1860s they established flourishing emporia at busy ports worldwide, selling local and imported curios to tourists whose numbers were beginning to swell, thanks to the development of safe and comfortable passenger vessels.

Q.8. Explain the cause of the Great Depression.
?‍♂️Ans – The Great Depression is attributed to the combination of the following factors –

• Tight monetary policies adopted by the Central Bank of America

• Stock market crash of 1929

• The failure of banks, which was the impact of the stock market crash as more people withdrew their savings from the banks leading to closure.

• Reduction in purchases due to diminished savings

• The passing of Smoot-Hawley Tariff or the Tariff Act of 1930, imposed high taxes on imported goods. As a retaliation for the same, trade partners imposed high tariffs on goods made in the USA, which resulted in a decline in the world trade by around two-third between the periods of 1929-34.

• Environmental degradation by drought and farming practices did not help in soil preservation and resulted in large areas of non-agricultural land. This was known as the Dust Bowl. This was coupled with dust storms that destroyed crops and livestock.

Q.9. (i) Explain what referred to as the G-77 countries.
(ii) In what ways can G-77 be seen as a reaction to the activities of the Bretton Woods Twins ?
?‍♂️Ans – (i) Refer Q.No. 52, Very Short Answer Type Questions
(ii) By establishing G-77, they could.

• Get real control over their natural resources.

• More assistance in their development.

• Fairer prices for raw materials.

• Better access for their manufactured goods.