World History in Depth – UPSC GS1

The Industrial Revolution was the shift from hand production in homes and workshops to machine production in factories, powered first by water and then by steam. It began in Britain around 1760–1780 and spread to…

Between 1775 and 1850, a wave of revolutions in North America and Europe overthrew old monarchies, ended feudal privilege and spread the ideas of popular sovereignty, liberty, equality and the rights of man. These ideas…

European expansion came in two waves. The first wave (c. 1500–1800), led by Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain and France, created trading posts in Asia and settler colonies and plantations in the Americas, built on…

The First World War (1914–1918) was the first "total war", mobilising entire economies and societies. About 9 to 10 million soldiers died. Four empires – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman – collapsed. The war…

The Second World War (1939–1945) killed an estimated 70 to 85 million people, most of them civilians. It included the Holocaust, in which about six million Jews were murdered, the firebombing of cities, the use…

The Cold War (c. 1947–1991) was a long rivalry between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. It was "cold" because the two superpowers never fought each other directly,…