题目 1 · free-response
3 分“The disruption caused by the American Civil War precipitated an unprecedented crisis in the British textile industry, commonly referred to as the ‘Cotton Famine.’ To alleviate their acute vulnerability to supply shocks, British manufacturers and colonial administrators actively restructured the agricultural economies of India and Egypt to cultivate raw cotton on a commercial scale. Within a few decades, traditional subsistence agriculture in regions like the Nile Delta and the Deccan Plateau was drastically displaced by cash-crop export systems integrated directly into British industrial networks. While this reorganization secured the raw material flow to factories in Lancashire, it severely exposed local peasant populations to global market volatility and worsened the severity of late nineteenth-century famines.”
Source: Marcus Vance, historian, Weaving the Empire: Textiles, Trade, and Global Realignments, academic book published in 2012.
Respond to parts A, B, and C.
A. Identify one argument the author makes regarding British responses to the cotton shortage in the nineteenth century.
B. Describe one way the shift to commercial agriculture mentioned in the passage impacted societies in India or Egypt in the nineteenth century.
C. Explain how one piece of historical evidence, not mentioned in the passage, illustrates the broader pattern of raw material extraction in European colonial empires during the period circa 1750 to 1900.
Source: Marcus Vance, historian, Weaving the Empire: Textiles, Trade, and Global Realignments, academic book published in 2012.
Respond to parts A, B, and C.
A. Identify one argument the author makes regarding British responses to the cotton shortage in the nineteenth century.
B. Describe one way the shift to commercial agriculture mentioned in the passage impacted societies in India or Egypt in the nineteenth century.
C. Explain how one piece of historical evidence, not mentioned in the passage, illustrates the broader pattern of raw material extraction in European colonial empires during the period circa 1750 to 1900.
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解题
Part A: Acceptable answers identify an argument directly from the passage, such as:
- The British restructured the agricultural economies of colonial and semi-colonial territories (India and Egypt) to secure an alternative supply of raw cotton.
- British imperial intervention aimed to reduce industrial reliance and vulnerability to external American supply disruptions.
- The economic reorganization benefited British domestic textile manufacturing (in Lancashire) at the direct expense and instability of peasant populations.
Part B: Acceptable answers describe an impact on Indian or Egyptian society mentioned or implied by the passage, such as:
- Peasant farmers were forced to abandon diversified subsistence farming in favor of mono-crop cash agriculture (cotton), reducing food crop availability.
- Local populations became deeply vulnerable to global commodity price fluctuations, resulting in debt and land loss.
- The conversion of arable land to cash crops contributed to vulnerability to devastating droughts and famines (such as the Great Famine of 1876–1878 in India).
Part C: Acceptable answers provide outside evidence showing imperialist extraction of raw materials in the 1750–1900 era, such as:
- King Leopold II and the Belgian administration extracted natural rubber and ivory from the Congo Free State using forced labor to supply European industrial demands for tires and machinery.
- The British developed extensive rubber plantations in Malaya and palm oil plantations in Nigeria to fuel industrial lubricants, soap production, and manufacturing.
- The Dutch Cultivation System in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) forced peasant farmers to set aside land for export crops like sugar and coffee instead of food crops.
- British and French demand for mineral resources led to large-scale copper and tin extraction in southern Africa and Southeast Asia.
- The British restructured the agricultural economies of colonial and semi-colonial territories (India and Egypt) to secure an alternative supply of raw cotton.
- British imperial intervention aimed to reduce industrial reliance and vulnerability to external American supply disruptions.
- The economic reorganization benefited British domestic textile manufacturing (in Lancashire) at the direct expense and instability of peasant populations.
Part B: Acceptable answers describe an impact on Indian or Egyptian society mentioned or implied by the passage, such as:
- Peasant farmers were forced to abandon diversified subsistence farming in favor of mono-crop cash agriculture (cotton), reducing food crop availability.
- Local populations became deeply vulnerable to global commodity price fluctuations, resulting in debt and land loss.
- The conversion of arable land to cash crops contributed to vulnerability to devastating droughts and famines (such as the Great Famine of 1876–1878 in India).
Part C: Acceptable answers provide outside evidence showing imperialist extraction of raw materials in the 1750–1900 era, such as:
- King Leopold II and the Belgian administration extracted natural rubber and ivory from the Congo Free State using forced labor to supply European industrial demands for tires and machinery.
- The British developed extensive rubber plantations in Malaya and palm oil plantations in Nigeria to fuel industrial lubricants, soap production, and manufacturing.
- The Dutch Cultivation System in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) forced peasant farmers to set aside land for export crops like sugar and coffee instead of food crops.
- British and French demand for mineral resources led to large-scale copper and tin extraction in southern Africa and Southeast Asia.
评分标准
Part A (1 point): 1 point for correctly identifying an argument made by the author regarding the British response to the nineteenth-century cotton shortage.
Part B (1 point): 1 point for accurately describing how the expansion of commercial agriculture affected societies in India or Egypt during the nineteenth century.
Part C (1 point): 1 point for explaining with specific historical evidence (not in the passage) how raw material extraction functioned in the broader context of nineteenth-century European imperialism.
Part B (1 point): 1 point for accurately describing how the expansion of commercial agriculture affected societies in India or Egypt during the nineteenth century.
Part C (1 point): 1 point for explaining with specific historical evidence (not in the passage) how raw material extraction functioned in the broader context of nineteenth-century European imperialism.