📜 The Making of a Global World

🌍 19th Century (1815–1914)

🔄 Major Global Changes in the 18th–19th Century

  • The world underwent dramatic transformations due to the interaction of:
    • Economic changes 💰
    • Political shifts 🏛
    • Social movements 👥
    • Cultural influences 🎭
    • Technological advances ⚙
  • These forces reshaped societies and changed international relations.

📦 Flows in International Economic Trade

Economists identify 3 major forms of movement (“flows”) in the 19th-century global economy:

1️⃣ Flow of Goods

  • Exchange of products like:
    • Cloth, wheat, spices, tea, rice, and other agricultural goods.
  • India:
    • Major exporter of raw materials 🌾
    • Major importer of manufactured goods 🏭

2️⃣ Flow of Labour

  • Large-scale migration of people from one country to another for employment.
  • Unlike goods & capital, labour migration was often restricted.

3️⃣ Movement of Capital

  • Long-distance flow of money for:
    • Short-term business transactions.
    • Long-term investments.
  • British & European capital → invested in:
    • Indian railways 🚂
    • Industries 🏭
    • Infrastructure projects 🏗

🔗 Interlinking of Flows

  • All three flows were interconnected — goods, capital, and labour worked together to shape economies.
  • Example: Trade in goods required investment (capital) and workers (labour) for production and transport.

✅ This section basically sets the economic background for understanding how the Industrial Revolution and colonialism shaped the global world before World War I.