HISTORY

                  Chapter  :5

Give reasons for the following :
(a) Woodblock print only came to Europe after 1295. [CBSE 2013]
(b) Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.
(c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited books from the mid-sixteenth century.
(d) Gandhi said the fight for ‘Swaraj is a fight for the liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom 

1. In 1517 Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
2. A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in Wittenberg.
3. It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
4. Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
5. This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
6. Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks and a second edition appeared within three months. All this became possible due to printing technology. Deeply grateful to print, Luther said, “Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.”
7. Several scholars, in fact, think that the print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.

(c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited Books from the mid-sixteenth century due to the following reasons :

1. The print and popular religious literature encouraged many distinctive individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working people. For example, Manocchio, a miller in Italy, after reading some books available in his locality, reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church. Various types of questions were raised against the faith and the Church. Manocchio was hauled up twice and ultimately executed.
2. As the Roman Catholic Church was troubled by such writings, it imposed severe controls over publishers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

 association.Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight for the liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of association due to the following reasons :

1. After the revolt of 1857, as the vernacular press became assertively nationalist, the colonial government tried to control it. Thus in 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. Whenever there was a seditious report, the newspaper was warned and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
2. When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment in 1908. There were widespread protests all over India.
3. During the First World War under the Defence of India Rules, 22 newspapers had to furnish securities. Of these, 18 shut down rather than comply with government orders.
4. Similarly during the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement, the Government of India was trying to crush the three powerful vehicles of expressing (Liberty of speech, liberty of press, and freedom of association) and cultivating public opinion. Thus the fight for Swaraj was a fight for this freedom than anything else.

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              MAKING THE GLOBAL WORLD

Write a note and 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 because of the World War.
(d) The Great Depression on the Indian economy.
(e) The decision of MNCs to relocate production to Asian countries.
Ans. (a) Refer Q.No. 2, Long Answer Type Questions.
(b) Refer Q.No. 5, Value Based Questions.
(c) (i) Reduction in the workforce: Most of the killed and injured were men of working age. These deaths and injuries reduced the able-bodied workforce in Europe. With fewer numbers within the family, the household income declined after the war.
(ii) New Social Set-up : The entire societies were reorganized for war – as men went to battle, women stepped in to undertake jobs that earlier only men were expected to do.
(d) Refer Q.No. 17, Long Answer Type Questions.
(e) (i) Wages are relatively low in Asian countries due to excess supply of workers.
(ii) Most of these economies have low cost structure.
(iii) Most of these countries have a huge market

What is meant by the Bretton Woods Agreement ?
Ans.
The main aim of the post-war international economic system was to preserve economic stability and full employment in the industrial world. The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in July 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the USA agreed upon its