World History from the 18th Century

What the official syllabus says

General Studies-I (Paper III), Main Written Examination:

• History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries, colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc.- their forms and effect on the society.

Topics in detail

Revolutions and ideas

• The Enlightenment and its thinkers (Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau)
• The American Revolution (1776) and its constitution
• The French Revolution (1789): causes, phases, Napoleon, legacy (liberty, equality, nationalism)

Industrial Revolution

• Why it began in Britain; key inventions; spread to Europe, the USA and Japan
• Effects on society: urbanisation, the factory system, the working class, trade unions, factory laws
• Links to colonialism: raw materials and markets

Nationalism and imperialism

• Unification of Italy and of Germany
• Colonisation of Asia and Africa: the Scramble for Africa and the Berlin Conference (1884–85), the Opium Wars in China, the Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868)
• Forms of colonial rule and their effects on colonised societies

The World Wars

• The First World War: causes, course, the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the League of Nations
• The Russian Revolution (1917) and the Soviet state
• Between the wars: the Great Depression (1929), fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, militarism in Japan
• The Second World War: causes, course, the Holocaust, results; the United Nations (1945)

Redrawal of national boundaries

• After the First World War: the end of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires and the new states of Europe and West Asia
• After the Second World War: the division of Germany and of Korea, the Partition of India, the creation of Israel (1948)
• After the Cold War: the break-up of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia; German reunification (1990)

Cold War and decolonisation

• The Cold War: NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Vietnam War, the end of the USSR (1991)
• Decolonisation in Asia and Africa: methods (negotiated, armed struggle), the Bandung Conference (1955), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961)
• The Chinese revolutions of 1911 and 1949

Political philosophies and their effect on society

• Liberalism and capitalism: the free market, private property, individual rights
• Socialism: early socialists, Marx and Engels, democratic socialism and the welfare state
• Communism: Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet model, Maoism; collectivisation and its costs
• Fascism and Nazism as anti-democratic ideologies
• How each shaped economies, class relations, rights and the state; India’s mixed economy as a blend

Other developments worth knowing

• Independence of the Latin American colonies in the early nineteenth century
• Abolition of the slave trade and of slavery; the American Civil War
• The revolutions of 1848 in Europe
• Decline of the Ottoman Empire and the making of modern Turkey and West Asia
• Apartheid in South Africa and its end (1994)
• European integration: from the European Coal and Steel Community to the European Union
• The rise of China after 1978 and of East Asian economies

A short timeline