NCERT Class 10 History Book PDF: What’s Inside Each Chapter

The NCERT Class 10 History book PDF is India and the Contemporary World II, the official textbook that covers nationalism, trade and print across five chapters and 128 printed pages. Every chapter’s official PDF is in the download table below — hosted on ncert.nic.in, free, with no login.

What the PDF alone does not show is how the book is built. From the textbook itself, this page lists each chapter’s named sections, the printed page each section begins on, and every activity the chapter sets.

One honest note: this edition prints its diagrams without captions, so there is no figure index here — sections and activities are the measurable parts.

Class 10 History Book PDF — official NCERT downloads

Every file in the table below is NCERT’s own, hosted on the official textbook portal at ncert.nic.in/textbook.php — free, with no login or payment, and served directly from the board’s site.

What this NCERT History Class 10 PDF contains

• 5 chapters, from The Rise of Nationalism in Europe (pp. 1-28) to Print Culture and the Modern World (pp. 103-128).
• 128 printed pages in the official PDF — every page is in the download table above.
• 60 named sections we could index from the textbook’s own printed headings.
• 26 activities set across the five chapters — Chapter 1 alone carries 9 of them.
• Chapter study pages: the block below renders each chapter’s status as Available, Drafting, or Not yet built, so you can see at a glance which pages you can open.

One boundary note: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus before treating any chapter as fully examinable.

What each chapter of this book actually teaches

A section is one of the chapter’s printed subheadings, exactly as NCERT names it in the book. An activity is a hands-on task that the chapter itself sets for students. The page gives the printed page on which each section and activity begins; end-of-chapter exercises are not listed on this page.

A figure is a numbered diagram indexed from the book. This edition prints its diagrams without captions, so the figure column carries no index a reader can inspect — the diagrams exist, our caption capture does not.

Within the textbook, the numbered subsections do not always begin at 1. In Chapter 1, the first listed subsection is 2.1, “The Aristocracy and the New Middle Class,” beginning on page 8; the chapter’s opening pages come before it. In Chapter 5, “Print Comes to India” (6.2) appears on page 120 and “Women and Print” (8.1) appears on page 124.

The table keeps the labels exactly as printed in the book.

Chapter 1: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe (pp. 1-28)

This chapter is the European half of the nationalism story: how a continent ruled by dynasties and empires reordered itself around the idea of the nation.

It traces the path from the aristocracy and the new middle class through liberal nationalism, conservative reaction after 1815, revolutionaries, romantic nationalism and the liberal revolutions of 1848, to the unifications of Germany and Italy — and Britain, the strange case where the state preceded the nation. A student asked how the European map changed between 1815 and 1871 works from here.

One honest note: our section index begins at p. 8, so the chapter’s opening pages are not in the list below.

1. The Aristocracy and the New Middle Class (p. 8)
2. What did Liberal Nationalism Stand for? (p. 9)
3. A New Conservatism after 1815 (p. 10)
4. The Revolutionaries (p. 12)
5. The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling (p. 13)
6. Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt (p. 15)
7. 1848: The Revolution of the Liberals (p. 17)
8. Germany – Can the Army be the Architect of a Nation? (p. 19)
9. Italy Unified (p. 20)
10. The Strange Case of Britain (p. 21)

With 10 indexed sections and 9 activities across 28 pages, it is tied with Chapter 3 as the longest chapter — and it carries the heaviest activity load in the book.

Chapter 2: Nationalism in India (pp. 29-50)

This is the Indian half of the story, built around Gandhi’s methods and the movements they produced. The chapter runs from the idea of satyagraha and the Rowlatt Act into non-cooperation in towns, countryside and plantations, then the Salt March and civil disobedience, weighed through how participants saw the movement and where its limits lay.

Students writing on Gandhi’s methods or the movement’s social reach work from here.

1. The Idea of Satyagraha (p. 30)
2. The Rowlatt Act (p. 31)
3. Why Non-cooperation? (p. 32)
4. The Movement in the Towns (p. 34)
5. Rebellion in the Countryside (p. 34)
6. Swaraj in the Plantations (p. 36)
7. The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement (p. 39)
8. How Participants saw the Movement (p. 41)
9. The Limits of Civil Disobedience (p. 43)

With 9 indexed sections and 5 activities across 22 pages, it is the book’s tightest chapter: the argument runs from the Rowlatt Act on p. 31 to the Salt March on p. 39 in just eight pages.

Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World (pp. 51-78)

The chapter treats globalisation as history, not a present-day theory.

It moves from silk routes and travelling foods through conquest, disease and trade into the nineteenth-century world economy built on technology and colonialism — including rinderpest, indentured labour from India and Indian traders abroad — then wartime transformations, the Great Depression and its Indian effects, the Bretton Woods settlement (NCERT, p. 74), decolonisation, and the shift towards globalisation.

Students who find the term ‘globalisation’ abstract get its chronology here.

The first indexed section begins at p. 54.

1. Silk Routes Link the World (p. 54)
2. Food Travels: Spaghetti and Potato (p. 54)
3. Conquest, Disease and Trade (p. 55)
4. A World Economy Takes Shape (p. 57)
5. Role of Technology (p. 59)
6. Late nineteenth-century Colonialism (p. 60)
7. Rinderpest, or the Cattle Plague (p. 62)
8. Indentured Labour Migration from India (p. 63)
9. Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad (p. 65)
10. Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global System (p. 65)
11. Wartime Transformations (p. 68)
12. Post-war Recovery (p. 69)
13. Rise of Mass Production and Consumption (p. 69)
14. The Great Depression (p. 71)
15. India and the Great Depression (p. 72)
16. Post-war Settlement and the Bretton Woods Institutions (p. 74)
17. The Early Post-war Years (p. 75)
18. Decolonisation and Independence (p. 76)
19. End of Bretton Woods and the Beginning of ‘Globalisation’ (p. 77)

With 19 indexed sections — the densest section structure in the book — and only 2 activities across 28 pages, it demands the most sustained reading of any chapter.

Chapter 4: The Age of Industrialisation (pp. 79-102)

This chapter pairs two economies and asks how industrialisation actually happened in each.

It opens with the coming of the factory in Britain and the uneven pace of industrial change, moves through the lives of workers, then turns to India: the age of Indian textiles, what happened to the weavers, Manchester’s competition, the early entrepreneurs, where the workers came from, and why small-scale industries survived.

Students comparing British and Indian industrialisation work from here.

The first indexed section begins at p. 82.

1. The Coming Up of the Factory (p. 82)
2. The Pace of Industrial Change (p. 83)
3. Life of the Workers (p. 86)
4. The Age of Indian Textiles (p. 89)
5. What Happened to Weavers? (p. 90)
6. Manchester Comes to India (p. 92)
7. The Early Entrepreneurs (p. 94)
8. Where Did the Workers Come From? (p. 95)
9. Small-scale Industries Predominate (p. 98)

With 9 indexed sections and 5 activities across 24 pages, it moves from the British factory on p. 82 to the Indian textile economy on p. 89 in a single argument.

Chapter 5: Print Culture and the Modern World (pp. 103-128)

This is the book’s culture chapter: how ideas travelled before broadcast media.

It opens with print in Japan (NCERT, p. 106) and Gutenberg’s press (NCERT, p. 109), then the new reading public, religious debates, print and dissent, and print’s part in the French Revolution; the second half turns to the readers — children, women and workers — and then to print in India, from manuscripts to women readers and cheap books for the poor.

Students asked how ideas reached ordinary people before mass media work from here.

In Chapter 5, the page-by-page list of section headings begins on p. 106 with “Print in Japan” and runs through “Print Comes to India” on p. 120; the next listed heading is “Women and Print” on p. 124.

1. Print in Japan (p. 106)
2. Gutenberg and the Printing Press (p. 109)
3. A New Reading Public (p. 111)
4. Religious Debates and the Fear of Print (p. 112)
5. Print and Dissent (p. 113)
6. ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’ (p. 115)
7. Print Culture and the French Revolution (p. 115)
8. Children, Women and Workers (p. 117)
9. Further Innovations (p. 118)
10. Manuscripts Before the Age of Print (p. 119)
11. Print Comes to India (p. 120)
12. Women and Print (p. 124)
13. Print and the Poor People (p. 126)

With 13 indexed sections and 5 activities across 26 pages, it closes the book with its widest geographic sweep — Japan, Europe and India.

Study pages for each chapter

The block below lists a study page for each chapter with its current status — chapters without a published page stay unlinked rather than promised.

Chapter-wise notes for this subject are not published yet. The unit-wise syllabus on this page is complete and verified against the official CBSE curriculum document.

How to use the Class 10 CBSE history book for revision

This is not one chronological world history — each of the five chapters (NCERT, pp. 1-128) is a self-contained argument. The fastest revision order groups them by theme rather than following the page order of the book.

1. Read sections in printed order, using the page-anchored topic lists above as your map — each section title carries its starting page.
2. Treat activities as pit-stops. Chapter 1’s 9 activities mean frequent checks; Chapter 3’s 2 activities mean long reading stretches where you should pause to build a timeline for the chapter’s events.
3. Self-test by covering the topic list and recalling one sentence per section title. The titles read like exam question stems — ‘Why Non-cooperation?’, ‘What Happened to Weavers?’ — so the topic map doubles as a revision checklist.
4. On a short night, jump straight to a named section using the topic map instead of re-reading the whole chapter.

Close with the same boundary as above: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus.

Related NCERT book pages

• NCERT books directory — every class and subject this site indexes, starting from the books root.
• NCERT Class 10 book pages — the hub for all Class 10 subjects, including this History volume.
• NCERT Class 10 Geography book (Contemporary India II) — the companion Social Science volume that completes the pair.

Sources and data verification

This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.

• Where the counts come from: the NCERT textbook edition we index — India and the Contemporary World II, Class 10 History — using the official PDFs on ncert.nic.in.
• What the data covers: 5 chapters, 128 printed pages, the 60 sections we could index and the 26 activities we counted. It does not cover a figure index (the book’s diagrams print without captions) or extracted exercise questions, so the section list is a finding aid, not the book’s full contents.
• Session: this listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
• Who settles what: NCERT for textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE for curriculum, syllabus and examinations.

Reference: NCERT Class 10 History textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in. Figure captions and section titles quoted from the textbook; page references are to the official PDF.

Frequently asked questions about this history book

How many chapters are in the Class 10 History NCERT book?

Five: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe (pp. 1-28), Nationalism in India (pp. 29-50), The Making of a Global World (pp. 51-78), The Age of Industrialisation (pp. 79-102) and Print Culture and the Modern World (pp. 103-128) — 128 pages in total. Every chapter’s PDF is in the download table at the top of this page.

Is this Class 10 History book PDF official and free?

Yes. Every file in the download table is NCERT’s own, hosted on ncert.nic.in with no login or payment. The chapter files open directly from the official portal.

Which chapter covers the Salt March and Civil Disobedience?

Chapter 2, Nationalism in India. The section ‘The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement’ begins on p. 39 (NCERT, p. 39), with ‘How Participants saw the Movement’ on p. 41 and ‘The Limits of Civil Disobedience’ on p. 43 after it.

Where are the Great Depression and Bretton Woods in this book?

Chapter 3, The Making of a Global World: ‘The Great Depression’ on p. 71, ‘India and the Great Depression’ on p. 72, and ‘Post-war Settlement and the Bretton Woods Institutions’ on p. 74 (NCERT, pp. 71-74). The chapter presents them in sequence, so the sections read as one connected argument.

Where does the book cover the French Revolution?

In the opening pages of Chapter 1, before p. 8. Our section index begins at p. 8 with ‘The Aristocracy and the New Middle Class’, so the French Revolution section is not in the topic list on this page.