The Making of a Global World

Every card in this deck

QGive examples showing that the world was interlinked long before modern globalisation.

ATravellers, traders, priests and pilgrims carried goods, money, ideas and even germs over vast distances. By 3000 BCE a coastal trade linked the Indus valley with West Asia, and for over a millennium cowries from the Maldives reached China and East Africa as currency.

QWhy are the silk routes a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade and cultural links?

ALand and sea routes linked Asia with Europe and northern Africa from before the Christian Era until about the 15th century. Chinese silk and pottery and Indian and Southeast Asian textiles and spices went west, and gold and silver flowed east to Asia.

QHow did trade and cultural exchange go hand in hand on the silk routes?

AReligions travelled along the same routes as goods. Early Christian missionaries and, a few centuries later, early Muslim preachers almost certainly used them, and much earlier Buddhism spread from eastern India in several directions through intersecting points on the silk routes.

QHow does food show long-distance cultural contact in the pre-modern world?

ATraders introduced new crops wherever they went. Noodles may have travelled west from China to become spaghetti, or Arab traders took pasta to Sicily in the fifth century. Potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes and chillies reached Europe and Asia only after Columbus reached the Americas.

QHow could a new crop like the potato make the difference between life and death?

AThe potato let Europe's poor eat better and live longer. But Ireland's poorest peasants became so dependent on it that when disease destroyed the crop in the mid-1840s, the Great Irish Potato Famine killed around a million people and drove about twice that number to emigrate.

QWhy was the Indian subcontinent central to pre-16th-century trade networks?

AFor centuries the Indian Ocean had a bustling trade in goods, people, knowledge and customs, and the Indian subcontinent was a crucial point in these networks. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century expanded or redirected some of these flows towards Europe.

QHow did the global transfer of disease help Europeans colonise the Americas?

AIsolated for millions of years, America's original inhabitants had no immunity to European germs such as smallpox, which the Spanish conquerors carried. Smallpox spread deep into the continent ahead of the Europeans, wiping out whole communities. Unlike guns, disease could not be captured and turned against the invaders.

QWhy did thousands of people flee Europe for America until the 19th century?

APoverty and hunger were common, cities were crowded, and deadly diseases were widespread in Europe. Religious conflicts were common and religious dissenters were persecuted.

QWhy did the centre of world trade shift westwards to Europe from the 15th century?

AChina and India were among the richest countries and led Asian trade until the 18th century. But China restricted overseas contacts and retreated into isolation from the 15th century, while silver from Peru and Mexico and the rising importance of the Americas enriched Europe.

QWhat are the three types of 'flows' in international economic exchange?

AThe flow of trade, largely in goods such as cloth or wheat in the 19th century; the flow of labour, the migration of people in search of work; and the movement of capital for short- or long-term investment over long distances. They were closely interwoven, though labour was often more restricted.

QCorn Laws (Britain)

ALaws that let the British government restrict corn imports, under pressure from landed groups. Industrialists and city dwellers forced their abolition. Cheap food imports then undercut British farming, land lay uncultivated, and thousands lost work and moved to cities or overseas, while food demand led lands worldwide to be cleared.

QHow did refrigerated ships change the availability of meat in Europe?

ABefore the 1870s, animals were shipped live and many died or sickened, so meat was a luxury. Refrigerated ships let animals be slaughtered in America, Australia or New Zealand and shipped frozen, cutting costs and prices so Europe's poor could add meat to bread and potatoes.

QHow did rinderpest help Europeans subdue Africa in the 1890s?

AAfricans had plenty of land and cattle and little reason to work for wages. Rinderpest, brought with infected cattle from British Asia, killed 90 per cent of Africa's cattle. Planters, mine owners and colonial governments then monopolised the remaining cattle, forcing Africans into the labour market.

QIndentured labour

ABonded labourers under contract to work for an employer for a fixed time, often five years, to pay off their passage to a new country. Indian indentured workers went mainly to the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji; the system, called a 'new system of slavery', was abolished in 1921.

QHow did indentured workers create new forms of cultural expression?

AThey blended old and new cultural forms. In Trinidad the Muharram procession became a riotous carnival called 'Hosay', joined by workers of all races and religions. Rastafarianism and 'chutney music' in Trinidad and Guyana also reflect links with Indian migrants.

QHow did India help Britain balance its trade in the late 19th century?

ABritish manufactures flooded India, so Britain had a trade surplus with India. It used this surplus to settle its deficits with other countries (a multilateral settlement system) and to pay 'home charges' such as officials' remittances, interest on India's debt and pensions.

QWhy is the First World War called the first modern industrial war, and how did it affect Europe's economy?

AIt used machine guns, tanks, aircraft and chemical weapons made by large-scale industry, killing 9 million and injuring 20 million. Losing working-age men reduced the workforce and household incomes, women took on men's jobs, and the US turned from international debtor to creditor.

QHow did Henry Ford's assembly line bring mass production, and at what cost to workers?

ABorrowing the conveyor belt from a Chicago slaughterhouse, Ford had each worker repeat one task at the belt's pace, so cars came off every three minutes and the T-Model became the first mass-produced car. Workers could not pause or talk; Ford doubled wages to $5 but banned unions and kept speeding up the line.

QWhat were the main causes of the Great Depression?

AAgricultural overproduction: as prices fell, farmers produced more, worsening the glut. And many countries depended on US loans, which US lenders suddenly withdrew from 1928, triggering bank failures and currency collapses. US efforts to protect itself by doubling import duties further hit world trade.

QHow did the Great Depression affect India?

AExports and imports nearly halved between 1928 and 1934 and wheat prices fell by half, but the government would not cut revenue. Peasants, such as Bengal's jute growers, fell deep into debt, mortgaged land and sold gold. Urban salaried groups gained from falling prices, and rural unrest fed the civil disobedience movement.

QBretton Woods system

AThe post-war economic framework agreed in July 1944 at Bretton Woods, USA, to preserve stability and full employment in the industrial world. It created the IMF, for members' external surpluses and deficits, and the World Bank, for post-war reconstruction. It used fixed exchange rates, with currencies pegged to the dollar and the dollar to gold.

QG-77 and the New International Economic Order (NIEO)

AThe G-77 is a group of developing countries that organised because they had not shared in the West's post-war growth. The NIEO was their demand for a system giving them real control over their natural resources, more development aid, fairer raw material prices and better market access for their manufactures.