Social Studies and Life Skills · Chapter 6
Study notes aligned to the official NEB syllabus.
History is the organized study of the human past. It helps us understand how present societies came to be. It shows what forces shaped them. It also shows how people met challenges over time.
This unit looks at four topics. First, it looks at how world history is written and the main trends in history writing. Second, it studies the economic rise and decline of medieval Asia. Third, it covers the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution. Fourth, it follows the long growth of democracy. Together, these topics show how economic life, ideas and political struggle shaped the modern world.
The writing of history is called historiography. It is the way scholars record, interpret and explain the past. History is not just a list of events. It is a careful rebuilding of the past from evidence. This evidence includes documents, inscriptions, coins, buildings and oral traditions. For very ancient times, it also includes fossils and artefacts.
We cannot watch the past directly. So historians must check their sources carefully. They must judge how reliable each source is. Then they must interpret what it means.
Over time, several main trends in history writing have developed. Early histories were often religious or mythological. They explained events as the will of the gods. Later, court histories focused on the deeds of kings and great individuals. This is sometimes called the "great man" approach. After that, political history focused on states, wars and treaties.
More recently, historians have widened their focus. Social history looks at the lives of ordinary people. Economic history looks at trade, production and wealth. Cultural history looks at ideas, art and belief.
Modern history writing tries to be fair and objective. It uses many kinds of evidence. It also includes the experiences of groups once left out. These include women, workers and marginalized communities.
Nepal shows the same change. Nepali history writing has moved from chronicles (vamshavali) of kings and dynasties toward wider studies of society, economy and culture. This gives a fuller picture of the national past.
In the medieval period, Asia was the economic centre of the world. Great civilizations in China, India and the Islamic lands of the Middle East made huge wealth. They did this through agriculture, craft manufacture and long-distance trade.
China produced silk, porcelain and tea. India was famous for cotton textiles, spices and precious goods. The Middle East linked these producers to Europe and Africa. For much of this period, Asian economies were far richer and more advanced than those of Europe.
Trade was the lifeblood of this prosperity. The Silk Road was a network of overland routes. It carried goods, ideas, religions and technologies. It linked China, Central Asia, India, the Middle East and Europe. Sea routes across the Indian Ocean also connected ports from China to East Africa. These exchanges spread more than goods. They also spread inventions such as paper, the compass and gunpowder. They spread religions and knowledge too.
In time, the economic strength of medieval Asia contracted. This means it declined compared with the rising West. Several factors played a part. Overland trade routes were disrupted. There were invasions and political instability. Later, European powers opened new sea routes. These routes bypassed the old Asian middlemen.
From the sixteenth century onward, European nations grew stronger in trade, technology and military power. This growth was especially strong after the Industrial Revolution. So the balance of economic power moved from Asia to the West.
Nepal's history reflects this wider Asian trade. Nepal was a transit point for trade between India and Tibet. The trade went through routes that crossed the Himalaya.
The Industrial Revolution was a great change. Before it, people made goods by hand. After it, machines in factories made goods. It began in Britain in the eighteenth century, around the middle to later part of that century. Then it spread to other parts of Europe, North America and beyond. It changed economic and social life more deeply than almost any earlier event.
Several causes brought about the Industrial Revolution. First, Britain had plenty of coal and iron. Coal powered machines. Iron was needed to build them. Second, Britain had capital from trade. It also had a strong banking system. This money could be invested in new businesses. Third, farming improved. Farms produced more food with fewer workers. This freed people to work in industry.
Fourth, inventions were crucial. The steam engine, improved by James Watt, gave a powerful new source of energy. New textile machines, such as spinning and weaving machines, greatly raised production. Fifth, Britain had colonies and markets. The colonies supplied raw materials such as cotton. They also bought the finished goods.
The effects were far-reaching. Goods could be made in huge quantities at lower cost. Wealth grew greatly. The factory system gathered work into large buildings in towns. So people moved from the countryside to the cities. This is called urbanization.
A new industrial working class grew. Workers often laboured long hours in difficult and unsafe conditions. Later, this led to demands for workers' rights and reforms. Railways and steamships changed transport.
There were also problems. The revolution brought pollution and crowded slums. It widened the gap between rich factory owners and poor workers.
Across the world, the revolution made Western industrial nations stronger. They looked for raw materials and markets. This encouraged imperialism. Nepal was not industrialized itself. But it was drawn into this world system through trade in goods made by industrial economies.
Democracy is a system of government. In it, the people hold the highest power. They rule either directly or through elected representatives. The word comes from Greek. It means "rule by the people." Democracy did not appear suddenly. It developed slowly over more than two thousand years. It came through many struggles and reforms.
The earliest form appeared in the city-states of ancient Greece, especially Athens. Free male citizens could take part directly in making decisions. This is known as direct democracy. But it left out women, slaves and foreigners.
A major step came in England with the Magna Carta in 1215. It limited the power of the king. It also set the principle that even rulers must obey the law. In the next centuries, the English Parliament grew stronger. The Glorious Revolution of the late seventeenth century confirmed another point. The monarch must rule with the consent of Parliament.
Two revolutions in the eighteenth century spread democratic ideas widely. The American Revolution produced a republic. It was based on the idea that governments get their just powers from the consent of the governed. The French Revolution began in 1789. It raised the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. It challenged the old order of kings and nobles across Europe.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, democracy kept developing. The right to vote was slowly given to more people. These included workers and, in the end, women. Today most democracies are representative democracies. They have regular free elections. They protect rights. They follow the rule of law.
Nepal's own path toward democracy reflects this global story. There were long periods of monarchy and Rana rule. Then democratic movements brought major changes. Today Nepal is a federal democratic republic. It is governed under the Constitution of Nepal 2015. The people elect their representatives at federal, provincial and local levels. The story of democracy shows that people won the right to govern themselves slowly. They won it through struggle and reform.