NCERT Book Class 9 Social Science (History) Chapter 1 The French Revolution

SECTION I

EVENTS AND PROCESSES
In Section I, you will read about the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution,
and the rise of Nazism. In different ways all these events were important in the
making of the modern world.

Chapter I is on the French Revolution. Today we often take the ideas of liberty,
EVENTS AND PROCESSES

freedom and equality for granted. But we need to remind ourselves that these ideas
also have a history. By looking at the French Revolution you will read a small part
of that history. The French Revolution led to the end of monarchy in France. A
society based on privileges gave way to a new system of governance. The Declaration
of the Rights of Man during the revolution, announced the coming of a new time.
The idea that all individuals had rights and could claim equality became part of a
new language of politics. These notions of equality and freedom emerged as the central
ideas of a new age; but in different countries they were reinterpreted and rethought
in many different ways. The anti-colonial movements in India and China, Africa and

Revolution
South America, produced ideas that were innovative and original, but they spoke in
a language that gained currency only from the late eighteenth century.

In Chapter II, you will read about the coming of socialism in Europe, and the dramatic
events that forced the ruling monarch, Tsar Nicholas II, to give up power. The Russian
French

Revolution sought to change society in a different way. It raised the question of
economic equality and the well-being of workers and peasants. The chapter will tell
you about the changes that were initiated by the new Soviet government, the problems
The

it faced and the measures it undertook. While Soviet Russia pushed ahead with
industrialisation and mechanisation of agriculture, it denied the rights of citizens
that were essential to the working of a democratic society. The ideals of socialism,

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