VELAMMAL VIDYALAYA

MANGADU

MAKING OF GLOBAL
WORLD
HISTORY ACTIVITY

NAME: KAUSHIK.K
CLASS: XB

2024-2025
 [Link] Nineteenth Century (1815-1914)

In the nineteenth century, economic, political, social,

cultural and technological factors interacted in complex
ways to transform societies and reshape external
relations. Three flows or movements were identified by
economists.
1. The first is the flow of trade, referred largely to trade in
goods (e.g., cloth or wheat).
2. The second is the flow of labour – the migration of
people in search of employment.
3. The third is the movement of capital for short-term or
long-term investments over long distances.
A World Economy Takes Shape
In the nineteenth-century, self-sufficiency in food meant lower living
standards and social conflict in Britain. It happened because of
population growth from the late eighteenth century. Corn laws were
imposed, which means restrictions on the import of corn. British
agriculture was unable to compete with imports, and vast areas of land
were left uncultivated. So, thousands of men and women flocked to the
cities or migrated overseas.
In Britain, food prices fell, and in the mid-nineteenth century, industrial
growth led to higher incomes and more food imports. In order to fulfil
British demand, in Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia, lands
were cleared to expand food production. In order to manage the linking of
railways to agricultural fields and building homes for people required
capital and labour. London helped in terms of finance and terms of labour
people emigrated from Europe to America and Australia in the nineteenth
century.
By 1890, a global agricultural economy had taken shape, adapting to
complex changes in labour movement patterns, capital flows, ecologies
and technology. In West Punjab, the British Indian government built a
network of irrigation canals to transform semi-desert wastes into fertile
agricultural lands to grow wheat and cotton for export. Even the
cultivation of cotton expanded worldwide to feed British textile mills.
1.1 .Role of Technology
Some of the important inventions in the field of technology are the
railways, steamships, and the telegraph, which transformed the
nineteenth-century world. But technological advances were often
the result of larger social, political and economic factors.
For example, colonisation stimulated new investments and
improvements in transport: faster railways, lighter wagons and
larger ships helped move food more cheaply and quickly from
faraway farms to final markets. Animals were also shipped live from
America to Europe till the 1870s. Meat was considered an expensive
luxury beyond the reach of the European poor. To break the earlier
monotony of bread and potatoes, many could now add meat (and
butter and eggs) to their diet.

1.2 Late Nineteenth-Century Colonialism

Trade flourished, and markets expanded in the late nineteenth
century. But, it has a darker side, too, as in many parts of the world,
the expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the world
economy meant a loss of freedoms and livelihoods. In 1885 the big
European powers met in Berlin to complete the carving up of Africa
between them. Britain and France made vast additions to their
overseas territories. Belgium and Germany became new colonial
powers. The US also became a colonial power in the late 1890s by
taking over some colonies earlier held by Spain.
1.3 Rinderpest, or the Cattle Plague
In Africa, in the 1890s, a fast-spreading disease of cattle plague impacted people’s
livelihoods and the local economy. Africa had abundant land and a relatively small
population. In the late nineteenth century, Europeans were attracted to Africa due to its
vast resources of land and minerals.
Europeans came to Africa hoping to establish plantations and mines to produce crops and
minerals for export to Europe. But there was an unexpected problem – a shortage of
labour willing to work for wages. Inheritance laws were changed, and according to the
new one, only one member of a family was allowed to inherit the land. In the late 1880s,
Rinderpest arrived in Africa carried by infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed the
Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East Africa. The loss of cattle destroyed African
livelihoods.

1.4 Indentured Labour Migration from India

Indentured labour illustrates the two-sided nature of the nineteenth-century world. A
world of faster economic growth as well as great misery, higher incomes for some and
poverty for others, technological advances in some areas and new forms of coercion in
others. In India, indentured labourers were hired under contracts, and most of them came
from the present-day regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, central India and the dry
districts of Tamil Nadu.
Indian indentured migrants’ main destinations were the Caribbean islands (mainly
Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam), Mauritius and Fiji. Indentured workers were also recruited
for tea plantations in Assam. Nineteenth-century indenture has been described as a ‘new
system of slavery’. In Trinidad, the annual Muharram procession was transformed into a
riotous carnival called ‘Hosay’ in which workers of all races and religions joined.
Similarly, the protest religion of Rastafarianism is also said to reflect social and cultural
links with Indian migrants to the Caribbean. From the 1900s, India’s nationalist leaders
began opposing the system of indentured labour migration as abusive and cruel. It was
abolished in 1921.
1.5 Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad
People need a huge capital to grow food and other crops for the
world market. So, for the humble peasant 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.

1.6 Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global System

Cotton from India was exported to Europe. In Britain, tariffs
were imposed on cloth imports. Consequently, the inflow of fine
Indian cotton began to decline. Over the nineteenth century,
British manufacturers flooded the Indian market. By helping
Britain balance its deficits, India played a crucial role in the
late-nineteenth-century world economy. Britain’s trade surplus
in India also helped pay the so-called ‘home charges’ that
included private remittances home by British officials and
traders, interest payments on India’s external debt, and
pensions of British officials in India.
2 The Inter-War Economy
The First World War (1914-18) was fought in Europe, but its
impact was felt around the world. During this period, the
world experienced widespread economic and political
instability and another catastrophic war.

2.1 Wartime Transformations

The First World War was fought between the Allies – Britain,
France and Russia (later joined by the US); and the Central
Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey.
The war lasted for more than four years and involved the
world’s leading industrial nations. It was considered the first
modern industrial war, which saw the use of machine guns,
tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc., on a massive scale.
During the war, industries were restructured to produce war-
related goods. Britain borrowed large sums of money from US
banks as well as the US public, transforming the US from
being an international debtor to an international creditor.
2.2 Post-War Recovery
Post-war economic recovery, Britain, the world’s leading economy,
faced a prolonged crisis. Industries had developed in India and
Japan while Britain was preoccupied with the war. Britain, after the
war, found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance
in the Indian market and to compete with Japan internationally. At
the end of the war, Britain was burdened with huge external debts.
Anxiety and uncertainty about work became an enduring part of
the post-war scenario.

2.3 Rise of Mass Production and Consumption

The US economy recovered quicker and resumed its strong growth
in the early 1920s. Mass production is one of the important features
of the US economy, which began in the late nineteenth century.
Henry Ford is a well-known pioneer of mass production, a car
manufacturer who established his car plant in Detroit. The TModel
Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car. Fordist industrial
practices soon spread in the US and were also copied in Europe in
the 1920s. The demand for refrigerators, washing machines, etc.,
also boomed, financed once again by loans. In 1923, the US resumed
exporting capital to the rest of the world and became the largest
overseas lende
2.4 The Great Depression
The period of The Great Depression began around 1929 and lasted till the
mid1930s; most parts of the world experienced catastrophic declines in
production, employment, incomes and trade. The most affected areas
were agricultural regions and communities. A combination of several
factors led to depression. The first factor is agricultural overproduction,
the second is in the mid-1920s, many countries financed their
investments through loans from the US. The rest of the world is affected
by the withdrawal of US loans in different ways. The US was also severely
affected by depression. Unfortunately, the US banking system collapsed
as thousands of banks went bankrupt and were forced to close.

2.5 India and the Great Depression

Indian trade is immediately affected by the depression. The prices of
agriculture fell sharply but still, the colonial government refused to
reduce revenue demands. In those depression years, India became an
exporter of precious metals, notably gold. Rural India was thus seething
with unrest when Mahatma Gandhi launched the civil disobedience
movement at the height of the depression in 1931
 3. Rebuilding a World Economy: The Post- War
Era
Two decades after the end of the First World War,
the Second World War broke out. It was fought
between the Axis powers (mainly Nazi Germany,
Japan and Italy) and the Allies (Britain, France, the
Soviet Union and the US). The war continued for six
years over land, on the sea, and in the air. The war
caused an immense amount of economic
devastation and social disruption. Post-war
reconstruction was shaped by two crucial
influences. The first one is that the US emerged as
the dominant economic, political and military
power in the Western world. The second was the
dominance of the Soviet Union.
3.1 Post-War Settlement and the Bretton Woods Institutions
Two-key lessons were drawn out from inter-war economic
experience. First, mass production cannot be sustained without
mass communication. The second lesson related to a country’s
economic links with the outside world. The Bretton Woods
conference established 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 postwar reconstruction. The IMF and the World
Bank commenced financial operations in 1947.

3.2 The Early Post-War Years

An era of unprecedented growth of trade and income was
inaugurated by the Bretton Woods for the Western industrial
nations and Japan. During this decade, technology and
enterprise were spread worldwide.
3.3 Decolonisation and Independence
After the end of the Second World War, large parts of the world were still
under European colonial rule. The IMF and the World Bank were
designed to meet the financial needs of the industrial countries. The IMF
and the World Bank from the late 1950s shift their attention more
towards developing countries. Most developing countries were not
benefited from the fast growth the Western economies experienced in
the 1950s and 1960s. They organised as a group – the Group of 77 (or G-
77) – and demanded a new international economic order (NIEO). NIEO
meant a system that would give them real control over their natural
resources, more development assistance, fairer prices for raw materials,
and better access to their manufactured goods in developed countries’
markets.

3.4 End of Bretton Woods and the Beginning of ‘Globalisation’

The US’s financial and competitive strength was weakened due to the
rising costs of its overseas involvement from the 1960s. In the mid-
1970s, the international financial system also changed and the industrial
world was also hit by unemployment. MNCs began to shift their
production to low-wage Asian countries. China became an attractive
destination for investment by foreign MNCs. In the last two decades, the
world’s economic geography has been transformed as countries such as
India, China, and Brazil have undergone rapid economic transformation.