The Making of a Global World

How trade, people and capital linked the world: silk routes, food and germs, the 19th-century economy, indenture, the Great Depression and Bretton Woods.

Key ideas

• Long before modern times the silk routes linked Asia with Europe and northern Africa, carrying silk, spices and textiles.
• After Columbus, potatoes, maize, tomatoes and chillies spread from the Americas, while germs like smallpox killed many native Americans.
• Economists see three flows in the world economy: trade, labour and capital.
• In the 19th century railways, steamships, the telegraph and refrigerated ships tied distant markets together.
• Rinderpest killed most of Africa’s cattle in the 1890s, pushing many Africans into wage work.
• Indentured workers from India went to the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji on fixed contracts until indenture was abolished.
• In the Great Depression production, jobs, incomes and trade fell; in India wheat prices fell by half and jute prices by over 60%.
• The Bretton Woods conference set up the IMF and the World Bank and fixed exchange rates.

Remember

Watch out

• Thinking potatoes and chillies began in Asia: they came from the Americas.
• Taking a 60% fall to leave 60%: it leaves 40% of the old price.
• Confusing the Bretton Woods twins (IMF and World Bank) with the WTO.

Worked example