A Worldwide Network
Introduced| English |
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| consumer revolution/kənˈsuːmə ˌrevəˈluːʃn/ |
One sentence, three revolutions
- The European-dominated worldwide economic network contributed to the agricultural, industrial and consumer revolutions in Europe.
- That single Key Concept names three transformations and gives them one shared cause.
- So the exam wants you to trace the network to each of the three, and the third is the one usually forgotten.
Select all three revolutions the CED links to the network.
The scientific revolution is unit 4.
To the agricultural revolution
- The network supplied new crops (3.3) and new demand for European produce.
- It also supplied the profits that financed enclosure, drainage and improved stock.
- So the agricultural revolution is partly funded from outside Europe, which is a link students rarely make.
A machine is worth building only if...
The network is where the quantity was sold.
To the industrial revolution
- The network supplied raw materials, and — more importantly — a market large enough to justify mechanisation.
- A machine only pays for itself if the output can be sold, and the network is where it was sold.
- That is why unit 6's industrialisation begins in a state with an overseas trading system already in place.
Which of the three revolutions?
Sort each contribution of the worldwide network.
The ____ revolution is the change in what ordinary households owned and expected to own.
It is the third of the three, and the one usually left out.
The consumer revolution is the third of the CED's three, and the one usually left out. It is a change in what ordinary households owned — sugar, tea, printed cotton — which is how a worldwide network reached into everyday life, and it is directly examinable.
Select all the goods that moved from luxury to routine.
Iron ore is an industrial input, not a household good.
And to the consumer revolution
- The consumer revolution 消费革命 is the change in what ordinary households owned and expected to own.
- Sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, printed cotton and porcelain moved from luxury to routine.
- So a network on the other side of the world reaches into a kitchen — which is the CED's point about everyday life.
3.3 and 3.4 share an objective, so an answer should use both.
3.3 is the domestic side; 3.4 is the global side.
Continuities and changes, again
- This subtopic shares 3.3's objective, so an answer draws on both.
- 3.3 gives the domestic side — yields, deregulation, putting-out, finance.
- 3.4 gives the global side, and the strongest answers use one of each and name the link between them.
A machine that spins thread is only worth building if the thread can be sold in quantity. The quantity exists because a trading network reaches markets far beyond the town. Mechanisation is therefore a consequence of the network as much as of the invention — which is what the CED's one sentence compresses.
The European-dominated worldwide economic network contributed to the agricultural, industrial and consumer revolutions in Europe. It supplied new crops and profits to agriculture, raw materials and a market large enough to justify mechanisation to industry, and turned sugar, tea, cotton and porcelain from luxury into routine in the consumer revolution.