The Making of a Global World Class 10 Extra Questions History Chapter 4
Question-1
Write a brief note on the ‘ Irish Potato Famine’.
Solution:
Europe’s poor began to eat better and live longer with the introduction of the humble potato. Ireland’s poorest peasants became so dependent on potatoes that when disease destroyed the potato crop in the mid-1840s, hundreds of thousands died of starvation . These starvation deaths were called the ‘ Irish Potato Famine’.
Question-2
What are ‘canal colonies’ ?
Solution:
The British Indian government built a network of irrigation canals in Punjab, to transform semi-desert wastes into fertile agricultural lands that could grow wheat and cotton for export. The Colonies situated around the areas irrigated by the new canals were called, Canal Colonies. Peasants from other parts of Punjab came and settled in these Canal colonies.
Question-3
Write a short note on Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
Solution:
Stanley was a journalist and explorer sent by the New York Herald to find Livingston, a missionary and explorer who had been in Africa for several years. Like other European and American explorers of the time, Sir Stanley also went with arms, mobilised local hunters, warriors and labourers to help him, fought with local tribes, investigated African terrains, and mapped different regions. These explorations helped the conquest of Africa.
Question-4
Indentured labour migration from India – discuss its causes and its impact.
Solution:
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 is called an Indentured labourer.
Indentured labour migration from India illustrates the two-sided nature of the nineteenth-century world. It was 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 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. In India, indentured labourers were hired under contracts which promised return travel to India after they had worked five years on their employer’s plantation.
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 their rents, became deeply indebted and were forced to migrate in search of work.
The main destinations of Indian indentured migrants were the Caribbean islands
Indentured workers were also recruited for tea plantations in Assam.
Many migrants agreed to take up work hoping to escape poverty or oppression in their home villages. But soon labourers found conditions to be different from what they had imagined. Living and working conditions were harsh, and there were few legal rights.
The workers discovered their own ways of surviving. Many of them escaped into the wilds, though if caught they faced severe punishment. Others developed new forms of individual and collective self expression, blending different cultural forms, old and new.
These forms of cultural fusion are part of the making of the global world, where things from different places get mixed, lose their original characteristics and become something entirely new.
Question-5
Give a brief account on Indian Bankers and Traders.
Solution:
The Shikaripuri shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars of India 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 even developed indigenous forms of corporate organisation.
Indian traders and moneylenders also followed European colonisers into Africa. The Hyderabadi Sindhi traders, however, ventured beyond European colonies, and established flourishing emporia at busy ports worldwide. From the 1860s, they began selling local and imported curios to tourists whose numbers were beginning to swell, thanks to the development of safe and comfortable passenger vessels.
Question-6
What is mass production and mass consumption?
Solution:
One important features of the vibrant US economy of the 1920s was mass production. A well-known pioneer of mass production was the car manufacturer Henry Ford. He adapted the assembly line production to his new car plant in Detroit.
The assembly line production forced workers to repeat a single task mechanically and continuously – such as fitting a particular part to the car – at a pace dictated by the conveyor belt. This was a way of increasing the output per worker by speeding up the pace of work.
Standing in front of a conveyor belt no worker could afford to delay the motions, take a break, or even have a friendly word with a workmate. As a result, Henry
Ford’s cars came off the assembly line at three-minute intervals, a speed much faster than that achieved by previous methods. The T-Model Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car.
Mass production reduced the cost of goods and this resulted in mass consumption.
Question-7
Colonialism during the late 19th century – discuss.
Solution:
Trade flourished and markets expanded resulting in increased prosperity in the late nineteenth century. In many parts of the world, the expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the world economy also meant a loss of freedoms and livelihoods. European conquests in the late nineteenth-century produced many painful economic, social and ecological changes through which the colonised societies were brought into the world economy.
Rival European powers in Africa drew up the borders demarcating their respective territories. 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 in the late nineteenth century.
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.
The impact of colonialism on the economy and livelihoods of colonised people was destructive.
Question-8
What were the crucial influences that shaped post-war ( II World War) reconstruction?
Solution:
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. The second was the dominance of the Soviet Union. It had made huge sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany, and transformed itself from a backward agricultural country into a world power during the very years when the capitalist world was trapped in the Great Depression.
Question-9
Write a short note on Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
Solution:
Stanley was a journalist and explorer sent by the New York Herald to find Livingston, a missionary and explorer who had been in Africa for several years. Like other European and American explorers of the time, Sir Stanley also went with arms, mobilised local hunters, warriors and labourers to help him, fought with local tribes, investigated African terrains, and mapped different regions. These explorations helped the conquest of Africa.
Question-10
Give a brief account on Indian Bankers and Traders.
Solution:
The Shikaripuri shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars of India 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 even developed indigenous forms of corporate organisation.
Indian traders and moneylenders also followed European colonisers into Africa. The Hyderabadi Sindhi traders, however, ventured beyond European colonies, and established flourishing emporia at busy ports worldwide. From the 1860s, they began selling local and imported curios to tourists whose numbers were beginning to swell, thanks to the development of safe and comfortable passenger vessels.
Question-11
What were the crucial influences that shaped post-war (II World War) reconstruction?
Solution:
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. The second was the dominance of the Soviet Union. It had made huge sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany, and transformed itself from a backward agricultural country into a world power during the very years when the capitalist world was trapped in the Great Depression.
Question-12
What are ‘canal colonies’?
Solution:
The British Indian government built a network of irrigation canals in Punjab, to transform semi-desert wastes into fertile agricultural lands that could grow wheat and cotton for export. The Colonies situated around the areas irrigated by the new canals were called, Canal Colonies. Peasants from other parts of Punjab came and settled in these Canal colonies.
