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NGSA Social Studies study materials
NGSA Social Studies study resources

NGSA Social Studies: World History and Civilisations

NGSA Social Studies · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

World History and Civilisations

World History and Civilisations asks you to place major societies in time and space, explain how ideas and inventions spread, and trace the changes that produced the modern world, including the forces that shaped the Caribbean.

River valley civilisations

  • Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates, Egypt on the Nile, the Indus cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, and China on the Yellow River.
  • Shared features: irrigation farming, surplus food, cities, writing, organised government, calendars and specialised workers.
  • In the Americas: the Maya of Mesoamerica with calendars and writing, the Aztec at Tenochtitlan, and the Inca of the Andes with roads and the quipu record system.

Europe and change

  • Greek city-states experimented with democracy in Athens; Rome spread law, roads, Latin and an empire.
  • The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment reshaped ideas, followed by the French Revolution of 1789 with its slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity, and the Industrial Revolution of steam, factories and railways.

Colonisation and freedom

  • Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, opening the Columbian exchange and the transatlantic slave trade. Britain abolished the trade in 1807 and slavery in 1833.
  • The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) created the first Black republic. After 1945 decolonisation accelerated, the United Nations was founded (1945), and the Non-Aligned Movement (Belgrade, 1961) gave newly independent states a voice.

Worked example

Explain one effect of the Industrial Revolution on the Caribbean. Reasoning: steamships and refrigeration improved transport and trade, while European beet sugar competed with Caribbean cane sugar and pushed prices down. Either point, clearly explained as a consequence, earns credit; simply naming 'machines' does not.

Traps that cost marks

  • Matching civilisations to the wrong river, such as placing Egypt on the Tigris.
  • Saying the United Nations was founded after the First World War; that was the League of Nations in 1919.
  • Dating the Haitian Revolution to the 1800s instead of 1791.