The Making of a Global World – Class 10 History Notes (CBSE 2025–26 Updated)

 

Class 10 History Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World!

Welcome to your one-stop resource for Class 10 History Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World!

Our notes are based on the latest NCERT textbook and follow the CBSE 2025–26 syllabus. All deleted topics have been removed, so you only focus on what matters for the board exam. Simplified explanations, timelines, and key terms are included to help you score high!

Subject	Social Science (History)
Class	10
Board	CBSE and State Boards
Chapter No.	3
Chapter Name	The Making of a Global World
Type	Notes
Session	2025-26
Weightage	1-2 marks

 Table of Content:

• ·       The Pre-modern World
• ·       Silk Routes Link the World
• ·       Food Travels: Spaghetti and Potato
• ·       Conquest, Disease, and Trade

The Pre-modern World

• Globalization is a long-term process, not just a recent phenomenon.
• Trade, migration, the movement of capital, and the spread of ideas and diseases have all contributed to globalization.
• Evidence of globalization can be found as far back as 3000 BCE.
• Cowries from the Maldives were used as currency in China and East Africa for over a millennium.
• The long-distance spread of disease-carrying germs can be traced back to the seventh century.
• By the thirteenth century, globalization was an unmistakable link between different parts of the world.

Silk Routes Link the World

The silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade and cultural links between distant parts of the world:

• Historians have identified several silk routes over land and by sea connecting vast regions of Asia with Europe and northern Africa.
• The name ‘silk routes’ points out the importance of West-bound Chinese silk cargoes along this route.
• Chinese pottery also traveled the same route, as did textiles and spices from India and Southeast Asia.
• In return, precious metals (gold and silver) flowed from Europe to Asia.
• Early Christian missionaries and Muslim preachers traveled this route to Asia. Much before all this, Buddhism from Eastern India spread in several directions through intersecting points on the silk routes.

Food Travels: Spaghetti and Potato

• Traders and travelers introduced new crops to the lands they traveled.
• Even ‘ready’ foodstuff in distant parts of the world might share common origins like spaghetti and noodles or, perhaps, Arab traders took pasta to 5th century Sicily, an island now in Italy.
• Similar foods were also known in India and Japan, so the truth about their origins may never be known. Yet such guesswork suggests the possibilities of long-distance cultural contact even in the pre-modern world.
• Many of our common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chilies, sweet potatoes, and so on were not known to our ancestors until about five centuries ago.
• These foods were only introduced in Europe and Asia after Christopher Columbus accidentally discovered the vast continent that would later become known as the Americas.

Sometimes the new crops could make the difference between life and death:

• 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.

Conquest, Disease, and Trade

After the discovery of America, its vast lands and abundant crops and minerals began to transform trade and lives everywhere.

Precious metals, particularly silver, from mines located in present-day Peru and Mexico also enhanced Europe’s wealth and financed its trade with Asia.

European conquest was not just a result of superior firepower:

The Spanish conqueror’s most powerful weapon was not a conventional military weapon because

• they used germs like smallpox which spread deep into the continent before any European could reach there.
• America's original inhabitants had no immunity against these diseases that came from Europe. This disease erased the whole community, leading to conquest. This biological warfare in the mid-sixteenth century made it easy for the Spanish to overpower the Americans.

European flee to America in the 19th century:

• Poverty and hunger were common in Europe.
• Cities were crowded and deadly diseases were widespread.
• Religious conflicts were common and religious dissenters were persecuted.
• Therefore, thousands fled Europe for America where plantations were worked by slaves captured in Africa for growing cotton and sugar for European markets.

📘 NCERT Solutions – Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World

🔹 Page 81 – Questions (Discuss)

Q1. Give two examples of different types of global exchanges which took place before the seventeenth century, choosing one example from Asia and one from the Americas.
Answer:

• From Asia: The Silk Route connected Asia with Europe, facilitating trade in silk, spices, and porcelain.

• From the Americas: The introduction of crops like potatoes, tomatoes, and chillies to Europe after the discovery of the Americas.

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Q2. Explain how the global transfer of disease in the pre-modern world helped in the colonisation of the Americas.
Answer:

• The arrival of Europeans in the Americas brought diseases like smallpox.

• Native Americans had no immunity and died in large numbers.

• This weakened local resistance and helped Europeans to colonize these regions easily.

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Q3. Write a note to 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 due to the World War
d) The Great Depression on the Indian economy
e) The decision of MNCs to relocate production to Asian countries

Answer:

• a) Allowed cheaper imports of food grains into Britain, benefiting consumers but hurting farmers.

• b) Rinderpest killed cattle, destroying African livelihoods and making them dependent on colonial powers.

• c) Shortage of labor led to increased demand for workers in the US and led to changes in gender roles in Europe.

• d) Falling agricultural prices and export demand severely hit Indian farmers; widespread rural distress.

• e) Lower wages and liberal policies attracted MNCs, increasing employment but also exploitation in developing countries.

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Q4. Give two examples from history to show the impact of technology on food availability.
Answer:

1. Refrigerated ships made it possible to transport perishable food items over long distances.

2. Railways helped move food quickly from agricultural areas to cities.

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Q5. What is meant by the Bretton Woods Agreement?
Answer:

• Signed in July 1944 to establish a framework for global economic cooperation after World War II.

• Created the IMF and World Bank.

• Promoted international trade and exchange rate stability under US leadership.

past and probable CBSE Class 10 History Chapter 3 – The Making of a Global World questions 

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🟩 1-Mark Questions (Objective / MCQs / Very Short Answer)

🔹 Q1. Who wrote The Book of Marvels?
📌 Answer: Marco Polo

🔹 Q2. What was the Corn Law?
📌 Answer: A British law that restricted the import of cheap foreign corn.

🔹 Q3. Which disease killed 90% of the native people of the Americas?
📌 Answer: Smallpox

🔹 Q4. What was the main motive of European colonists in Africa?
📌 Answer: To exploit natural resources and cheap labor.

🔹 Q5. Name the institution established under the Bretton Woods system.
📌 Answer: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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🟨 2-Mark Questions (Short Answer)

🔹 Q1. What do you understand by the term 'Silk Route'?
📌 Answer: It refers to an ancient trade route that connected Asia with Europe, enabling the exchange of goods like silk, spices, and cultural ideas.

🔹 Q2. Mention two effects of the abolition of Corn Laws in Britain.
📌 Answer:

1. Allowed cheaper food imports, benefiting workers.

2. British agriculture suffered due to foreign competition.

🔹 Q3. How did rinderpest affect African livelihoods?
📌 Answer: The cattle plague destroyed livestock, crippling the pastoral economy and forcing Africans to become laborers on European plantations.

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🟧 3-Mark Questions (Descriptive / Reasoning-Based)

🔹 Q1. Explain the impact of technology on food availability in the 19th century.
📌 Answer:

1. Refrigerated ships helped transport meat over long distances.

2. Railways enabled faster movement of food to markets.

3. Preserved food led to global food trade expansion.

🔹 Q2. How did the Great Depression affect the Indian economy?
📌 Answer:

1. Demand for Indian exports fell.

2. Prices of agricultural products collapsed.

3. Farmers sank into debt and rural distress increased.

🔹 Q3. Explain three ways in which the Silk Routes were important in ancient times.
📌 Answer:

1. Facilitated trade between East and West.

2. Spread of religion like Buddhism.

3. Exchange of culture, goods, and technologies.

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🟥 5-Mark Questions (Long Answer / Analysis-Based)

🔹 Q1. Explain five key effects of the global transfer of disease, food, and trade in the pre-modern world.
📌 Answer:

1. Disease like smallpox wiped out native populations.

2. New crops like potatoes, maize, and tomatoes enriched European diets.

3. Slavery increased due to plantation systems.

4. Global trade networks were established.

5. Colonization accelerated in Americas and Africa.

🔹 Q2. Describe the causes and consequences of the Great Depression.
📌 Answer:
Causes:

• Overproduction in US farms and factories

• Speculation in stock markets

• Weak banking system

Consequences:

• Global unemployment

• Fall in demand and production

• India suffered falling prices and rural poverty

🔹 Q3. What was the Bretton Woods system? How did it shape post-war global economic order?
📌 Answer:

• A system of monetary management established in 1944

• Created IMF and World Bank

• Fixed exchange rates to promote stable trade

• USA emerged as the global economic leader

• Encouraged decolonization and global cooperation