History of the Modern World (up to 1991)

What the official syllabus says

RAS Main Examination, Paper I: General Studies I, Unit I (History), Part C: History of Modern World (up to 1991 A.D.).

• Renaissance and Reformation.
• American War of Independence, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Russian Revolution.
• Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy.
• Impact of World Wars, World during Cold war.

Topics in detail

For each event, learn its causes, main course, results and its effect on India and the rest of the world. The syllabus stops at 1991, the end of the Soviet Union.

Renaissance and Reformation

• Renaissance: its Italian origin, humanism, revival of classical learning; Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo; the printing press (Gutenberg)
• Scientific revolution and the age of exploration as results of the Renaissance
• Reformation: Martin Luther's 95 theses (1517), Calvin, the English Reformation under Henry VIII
• Counter-Reformation: the Council of Trent and the Jesuits; effects on European politics

American War of Independence

• Causes: mercantilism, the Stamp Act (1765), 'no taxation without representation', the Boston Tea Party (1773)
• Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776); the war and French help; the Treaty of Paris (1783)
• The US Constitution (1787): federalism and separation of powers; the Bill of Rights (1791); influence on later revolutions

French Revolution

• Causes: the three estates, financial crisis, the Enlightenment thinkers (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu)
• Course: the Estates-General, the Tennis Court Oath, the fall of the Bastille (14 July 1789), the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Reign of Terror
• Napoleon: reforms, the Code Napoleon, wars; legacy of liberty, equality and fraternity, nationalism

Industrial Revolution

• Why it began in Britain; inventions in textiles (spinning jenny, water frame, power loom) and the steam engine (James Watt)
• Spread to Europe, the USA and Japan; railways and steamships
• Social and economic effects: factory system, urbanisation, working class, trade unions, socialism; link with colonialism

Russian Revolution

• Tsarist autocracy, the 1905 revolution, the impact of the First World War
• February and October revolutions of 1917; Lenin and the Bolsheviks; civil war
• New Economic Policy (1921), formation of the USSR (1922), Stalin's five-year plans and collectivisation

Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy

• Background: the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Republic, the Great Depression
• Mussolini, the March on Rome (1922) and the Fascist state
• Hitler's rise to power (1933), Nazi ideology, the totalitarian state and the Holocaust; aggression leading to war

World Wars and their impact

• First World War (1914 to 1918): causes, the Paris Peace Conference, the League of Nations, the fall of empires
• Second World War (1939 to 1945): causes, main theatres, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Impact: the United Nations (1945), the decline of European empires, decolonisation in Asia and Africa

The world during the Cold War

• Origins: Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; NATO (1949) and the Warsaw Pact (1955)
• Crises: the Berlin blockade, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Vietnam War, Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
• Non-Aligned Movement (Belgrade, 1961) and India's role; détente and arms control
• End of the Cold War: Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), German reunification (1990), the dissolution of the USSR (December 1991)