Reflecting and consolidating

Chapter summary
  • Industrialisation changed both the ways of production and the places of production from home to workshop, factory and office. Many workers had a hard daily grind and lived in cramped conditions.
  • Slavery, convict transportation and indentured labour were systems of exploited labour that helped to build colonies and new countries.
  • Settlers and migrants moved around the world in huge numbers, partly because of steamships and railroads.
  • Cities sprang up and expanded quickly. The world’s population grew.
  • New technologies included photography and film, which recorded these dramatic changes along with art and literature. Films and cinemas became very popular forms of entertainment.
  • Ideas of individual rights and human equality sparked political revolutions and led to new forms of government.
  • The Australian colonies gained self-government, mostly in the 1850s, and federated as one nation in 1901.
Interactive activities

Key terms

Significant individuals

Timeline

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Short-answer questions
  1. Explain how the daily labour for workers changed with the Industrial Revolution.
  2. How did Australian cities grow and change in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
  3. Describe why so many settlers and migrants moved around the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
  4. What benefits did the imperial powers receive from their colonies?
  5. Identify the main constitutional changes in Australia in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Source analysis

Study Source 10.15 and answer the following questions.

The English have taught us that we were not one nation before, and that it will require centuries before we become one nation. This is without foundation. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided us … I do not wish to suggest that because we were one nation we had no differences, but … our leading men travelled throughout India either on foot or in bullock carts. They learned one another’s languages and there was no aloofness between them. What do you think could have been the intention of those far-seeing ancestors of ours who established Shevetbindu Rameshwar in the South, Juggarnaut in the South-East and Hardwar in the North as places of pilgrimage? You will admit they were no fools. They knew that worship of God could have been performed just as well at home. They taught us that those whose hearts were aglow with righteousness had the Ganges in their own homes. But they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore, argued that it must be one nation.

Source 10.15 Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1908), p. 32

  1. Based on your reading of this document, interpret what Gandhi is arguing for and what is he refuting.
  2. What case is he making for Indian independence from Britain?
  3. Discuss the aspects of Indian culture and society that Gandhi hopes will inspire Indian nationalism.
Extended-response question

Undertake research on the American, French and Bolshevik Revolutions. Present your findings in a report and be sure to answer the following questions:

  • What political goals did they have in common?
  • What political principles were different?
  • Did the earlier revolutions influence the later?
  • Who were the main leaders of each revolution?
  • Did slaves benefit from the American or French Revolutions?
  • Did women gain any rights from any of the revolutions?
  • How was each revolution shaped by its specific circumstances and time period?
  • Which revolution would you regard as the most successful?