BHIC 108 key facts: June 2026
- Course code: BHIC 108 (printed BHIC-108)
- Subject: Rise of the Modern West-II
- Programme: Bachelor of Arts (Honours) History (BAHIH); also offered to the four-year History Major (BAFHI)
- Credits: 6 (core course)
- Units: 13 units in one course book
- Maximum marks: 100 (term-end exam 70 per cent, assignments 30 per cent)
- Duration: 3 hours
- Questions in the paper: 8 in two sections; attempt any 5, at least 2 from each section; Q4 and Q8 each offer 4 short-note options
- Expected length: about 400 words per long answer, 200 words per short note
- Paper language: bilingual, English followed by Hindi
- Samples shown here: 2 (Q1 and Q2); all 8 questions in the paid file
BHIC 108 Solved Question Paper for the June 2026 term-end examination gives you complete, exam-length answers to the official IGNOU paper on Rise of the Modern West-II. Two answers are open below so you can judge the quality; the full file with all 8 questions comes to you on WhatsApp.
1. What the June 2026 Solved Paper Covers
BHIC 108 is a 6-credit core course of IGNOU's BA (Honours) History that follows Europe and the Atlantic world through the 17th and 18th centuries.
The June 2026 paper runs from the seventeenth-century crisis and mercantilism to the Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the link between farming and industry. It has 8 questions in two sections, and Q4 and Q8 each offer four short-note options, so the paper touches almost every unit of the course book.
Our file answers all of it: every long question in about 400 words and every short-note option in about 200 words, the lengths the paper itself asks for. On this page you can read Q1 and Q2 in full.
One thing makes this session stand out. The June 2026 paper leans heavily on the June 2023 paper: the radical reformation question is repeated word for word, rationalism returns as a short note, women in science comes back, and the stages of the Enlightenment are asked again. Students who practised older papers walked in with a head start.
2. Two Answers Solved in Full, Six Held Back
Below are complete answers to Q1 and Q2 of Section I, each written to the 400-word length the paper asks for.
Historical debates on the seventeenth-century crisis
Question 1: Discuss the historical debates on the seventeenth century crisis. (20)
The seventeenth century, especially the decades from about 1620 to 1660, brought falling population, failed harvests, war and revolt to much of Europe. Historians agree that something went badly wrong, but they disagree sharply on what the crisis was, whom it hit and whether it was "general" at all. This makes it one of the liveliest debates in early modern European history.
Hobsbawm: an economic crisis
The debate began with Eric Hobsbawm's two-part essay on the general crisis of the European economy, published in Past and Present in 1954. Writing as a Marxist, he argued that the crisis was the last phase of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Feudal structures limited markets and investment, so growth stalled; only where capitalist relations were stronger, as in England and the Dutch Republic, did the economy recover and move ahead.
Trevor-Roper: a political crisis
Hugh Trevor-Roper replied in the same journal in 1959 with a political reading. For him the crisis lay in the relationship between society and the state. The swollen, costly Renaissance court, with its offices, pensions and taxes, provoked a revolt of the "country" against the "court". He linked this to the revolutions of the 1640s: the English Civil War, the risings in Catalonia and Portugal in 1640, Naples in 1647 and the Fronde in France (1648-1653).
Fiscal and regional readings
Others widened or modified the thesis. Roland Mousnier stressed peasant revolts and the strain of state finance, while J.H. Elliott showed how the demands of the Spanish monarchy sparked the Catalan and Portuguese revolts. Niels Steensgaard argued that the common thread was the sharp rise in taxation needed to fight wars such as the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).
The critics
Critics questioned the very idea of a general crisis. The Soviet historian A.D. Lublinskaya argued that France in the 1620s showed growth and state consolidation rather than breakdown. The Dutch golden age, at its height in the same decades, also sits uneasily with a picture of Europe-wide decline. Regional studies showed that Spain, Italy and the Mediterranean suffered far more than the north-west.
The climate turn
More recent work brings in climate. Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis (2013) links the Little Ice Age, colder summers and harvest failure to war, famine and revolt across the world, not only in Europe. This moves the debate from a purely European economic or political story to an environmental and global one.
Conclusion. The debate has moved from Hobsbawm's economic crisis and Trevor-Roper's political crisis to fiscal, regional and climatic explanations. Most historians now accept that Europe faced a serious crisis, but see it as uneven: a turning point that weakened Spain and Italy while north-western Europe, above all England and the Netherlands, came out stronger.
The nature and significance of mercantilism
Question 2: Examine the nature and significance of mercantilism in European countries. (20)
Mercantilism was the set of economic ideas and state policies that shaped much of Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. It rested on the belief that a nation's wealth and power depended on gathering precious metals and running a favourable balance of trade. The label came later: Adam Smith attacked the "mercantile system" in The Wealth of Nations (1776).
Nature
Mercantilism was a group of shared assumptions rather than one theory.
- Bullionism: gold and silver were treated as the chief measure of wealth.
- A favourable balance of trade: exports should exceed imports so that money flowed in. Thomas Mun's England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, published in 1664, set out this argument clearly.
- An active state: governments raised tariffs on foreign manufactures, granted subsidies and monopolies to home industries and encouraged a large working population.
- Colonies and shipping: colonies were prized as sources of raw materials and as protected markets, while shipping and naval power were seen as essential to guard trade.
Mercantilism in different countries
Spain followed a crude bullionism, relying on silver from its American colonies, but the flood of silver fed inflation and did little to build Spanish industry.
In France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister from the 1660s, built "Colbertism": royal manufactures such as the Gobelins workshops, high tariffs in 1664 and 1667, and the French East India Company of 1664.
England relied on shipping. The Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660 required goods to be carried in English ships, which hurt Dutch carriers and fed the Anglo-Dutch wars.
The Dutch Republic, by contrast, favoured fairly open trade at home, yet its East India Company (VOC, founded 1602) held a state-backed monopoly in Asian trade.
Significance
Mercantilism tied economics to state-building. Customs revenue and trade profits paid for armies and navies, and commercial rivalry became a cause of war. It also drove colonial expansion and the Atlantic trading system and helped merchant capital to grow. Eli Heckscher, in his classic study Mercantilism (1931), saw it above all as a policy for unifying the state and increasing its power.
Limits
Its limits were plain by the eighteenth century. The Physiocrats in France and Adam Smith argued that wealth lay in production and open exchange, not in hoarding bullion. Even so, mercantilist protection sheltered young industries, especially in England, and so prepared some of the ground for industrialisation.
Conclusion. Mercantilism was the economic face of the early modern state: a policy of power as much as of profit.
3. Questions Answered Only in the Full File
The questions below are printed exactly as they appear in the June 2026 paper. Their answers are in the full file only.
Section I
Question 3: Write a note on the radical reformation in England. (20)
Question 4: Write short notes on any two of the following in about 200 words each. (10 + 10)
(a) Rationalism
(b) Women and modern science
(c) Monarchies and privileged classes
(d) Social life and leisure
Section II
Question 5: Define the Enlightenment. Discuss the various stages of the Enlightenment. (20)
Question 6: Discuss the significance of the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts in the origin of the American Revolution. (20)
Question 7: Examine the relationship between agriculture and the Industrial Revolution. (20)
Question 8: Write short notes on any two of the following in about 200 words each. (10 + 10)
(a) Colonies and capitalism
(b) Demographic trends, 1500-1800
(c) Book production
(d) Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Section II alone moves from Montesquieu and the stages of the Enlightenment to colonial protest in America and English farming, so a smart choice of five questions matters.
4. Unit-Wise Syllabus
The course book has 13 units that move from the crisis of the 1600s to trade, colonialism and the divergence of Europe from the rest of the world in the 1700s.
| Unit | Unit title | Key topics inside the unit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seventeenth Century "European Crisis" | Demographic, agrarian and monetary crisis; the Hobsbawm and Trevor-Roper debate; Mediterranean countries in the crisis |
| 2 | European Colonial Expansion and Mercantilism | Bullionism and balance of trade; Colbert's France; Dutch and English trading companies |
| 3 | Religion, Diversity and Dissent | Counter-Reformation; radical sects in England; Church and state relations |
| 4 | Intellectual Currents in Seventeenth-Century Europe | Descartes and rationalism; Bacon, Locke and empiricism; Hobbes and scepticism |
| 5 | Art, Culture and Society | Baroque and later visual arts; music and literature; popular culture and leisure |
| 6 | The English Revolution | Charles I and the Civil War; Cromwell and the Commonwealth; the Restoration of 1660 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 |
| 7 | The Modern Science | Galileo and Newton; interpretations of the Scientific Revolution; women in early modern science |
| 8 | European Politics in the Eighteenth Century | Absolutism versus parliamentary monarchy; state and politics in England and France; popular challenges to authority |
| 9 | Enlightenment | Meaning and stages of the Enlightenment; Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau; its legacies |
| 10 | Political and Economic Issues in the American Revolution | Taxation disputes after 1763; colonial protest and the British response; the road to independence |
| 11 | Agricultural and Demographic Changes in Europe | Enclosures and the agrarian revolution in England; farming in France and Germany; population and marriage patterns |
| 12 | The Patterns of Consumption and Production | Proto-industrialisation; the "industrious revolution"; book production and print |
| 13 | Patterns of Trade, Colonialism and Divergence in the Eighteenth Century | Atlantic and Indian Ocean trade; slave trade and plantations; the Great Divergence debate |
If you want to read the units themselves, our BHIC 108 Study Material follows the same unit order. The official course book is on eGyanKosh, IGNOU's digital library.
5. Question Paper Pattern and Marks Split
The paper is a 3-hour, 100-mark paper where you attempt any five of 8 questions, taking at least two from each section.
| Section | Questions | Type and length | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I | Q1, Q2, Q3 | Long answers on the 17th-century crisis, mercantilism and the English radical reformation, about 400 words each | 20 each |
| Section I | Q4 (a) to (d) | Two short notes from rationalism, women in science, monarchies, social life; about 200 words each | 10 + 10 |
| Section II | Q5, Q6, Q7 | Long answers on the Enlightenment, the American Revolution and agriculture with industry, about 400 words each | 20 each |
| Section II | Q8 (a) to (d) | Two short notes from colonies, demography 1500-1800, book production, Montesquieu; about 200 words each | 10 + 10 |
The June 2026 paper is bilingual, with the English version followed by the Hindi version. For more sessions laid out the same way, see our BAHIH Question Paper collection for the whole History Honours programme.
In the final result, the term-end paper carries 70 per cent weight and the three tutor-marked assignments carry 30 per cent.
6. Topics Examiners Keep Coming Back To
Across 7 official IGNOU papers from June 2022 to June 2026, the English Revolution, rationalism, the Enlightenment, agrarian change and colonial trade appeared in every single session.
| Topic area | Unit | Sessions where it was asked | Papers (of 7) |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Revolution, radical sects, Restoration and 1688 | Units 3 and 6 | All seven sessions | 7 |
| Rationalism, empiricism, scepticism, Hobbes and Locke | Unit 4 | All seven sessions | 7 |
| Enlightenment, its stages, thinkers and legacies | Unit 9 | All seven sessions | 7 |
| Enclosures, agrarian change and population trends | Unit 11 | All seven sessions | 7 |
| Colonial trade, slave trade and the Great Divergence | Unit 13 | All seven sessions | 7 |
| Seventeenth-century crisis and its dimensions | Unit 1 | Jun 22, Jun 23, Jun 24, Dec 24, Jun 25, Jun 26 | 6 |
| Mercantilism and its spread across Europe | Unit 2 | Jun 22, Jun 23, Dec 23, Jun 24, Dec 24, Jun 26 | 6 |
| Modern science, its interpretations and women in science | Unit 7 | Jun 22, Jun 23, Dec 23, Jun 24, Dec 24, Jun 26 | 6 |
| Proto-industrialisation, industrious revolution and book production | Unit 12 | Jun 22, Jun 23, Dec 23, Dec 24, Jun 25, Jun 26 | 6 |
| American Revolution and colonial grievances | Unit 10 | Dec 23, Jun 24, Dec 24, Jun 25, Jun 26 | 5 |
| Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Church-state relations | Unit 3 | Jun 22, Dec 23, Jun 24, Jun 25 | 4 |
| Eighteenth-century state, monarchy and politics | Unit 8 | Jun 23, Jun 24, Jun 25, Jun 26 | 4 |
The December 2022 and December 2025 papers were not available on IGNOU's official servers when we built this table, so they are left out rather than guessed. For a ranked list of likely questions for your next attempt, see our IGNOU Solved Guess Paper page.
7. How Our Answers Are Written and Checked
Every answer is written from the IGNOU course book first, then checked against older papers so the stress falls where examiners expect it.
Our team starts with the BHIC 108 unit that each question comes from, then reads how the same theme was framed in earlier sessions. You can compare those sessions yourself in our IGNOU Previous Year Question Paper section.
History answers in this course gain marks for names, dates and historians. So each answer carries an introduction, dated evidence, at least one historian's view where the debate matters, and a short conclusion. Long answers stay near 400 words and short notes near 200, as the paper instructs.
Every answer is then reviewed for facts, length and structure before the file goes out. Spellings follow British English, which matches the IGNOU course material.
8. Solved File Index
The full file answers all 8 questions; 2 of them are open on this page and 6 are in the file only.
| Question | Theme | Unit | Where the answer is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Historical debates on the seventeenth-century crisis | Unit 1 | Sample 1 above |
| Q2 | Nature and significance of mercantilism | Unit 2 | Sample 2 above |
| Q3 | Radical reformation in England | Units 3 and 6 | Full file |
| Q4 | Short notes: rationalism; women and modern science; monarchies and privileged classes; social life and leisure | Units 4, 7, 8 and 5 | Full file (all four options) |
| Q5 | Definition and stages of the Enlightenment | Unit 9 | Full file |
| Q6 | Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts and the American Revolution | Unit 10 | Full file |
| Q7 | Agriculture and the Industrial Revolution | Units 11 and 12 | Full file |
| Q8 | Short notes: colonies and capitalism; demographic trends 1500-1800; book production; Montesquieu | Units 13, 11, 12 and 9 | Full file (all four options) |
Because every short-note option under Q4 and Q8 is answered, you are covered whichever two you choose in the hall.
9. Programmes That Study BHIC 108
BHIC 108 is a core course in the IGNOU BA (Honours) History programme and also appears in the four-year History Major.
It is studied in the IGNOU Bachelor of Arts (Honours) History programme (BAHIH), right after BHIC 106, which covers the earlier phase of the modern West. The 2026-27 assignment booklet also lists it for BAFHI, IGNOU's four-year undergraduate History Major.
Students of both programmes sit the same term-end paper, so this June 2026 solved file works for either. Learners who studied BHIC 106 will notice that print, the Reformation and colonial trade carry forward into this course.
10. How to Get the Full Solved Question Paper
Message us on WhatsApp 9899436384 with the code BHIC 108 and the session June 2026, and we will share the file details and price.
The file contains all 8 questions: the 2 you read here plus the 6 not shown, including every short-note option under Q4 and Q8. It is a PDF you can read on your phone before the exam.
Many students use it twice: once to learn the shape of a 20-mark history answer, and again in the last week to revise names, dates and historians across all 13 units.
11. BHIC 108 FAQs
These are the questions BHIC 108 students most often ask us before buying the June 2026 solved file.
How many questions are in the June 2026 paper?
The June 2026 paper has 8 questions split across two sections. You attempt any five, choosing at least two from each section. Q1 to Q3 and Q5 to Q7 are long answers of about 400 words for 20 marks each, while Q4 and Q8 ask for two short notes of about 200 words each, worth 10 marks apiece.
Which answers can I read in full on this page?
You can read Q1 and Q2 of the June 2026 paper in full on this page. Q1 covers the historical debates on the seventeenth-century crisis and Q2 covers the nature and significance of mercantilism. The remaining 6 questions are listed exactly as printed, and their answers are kept for the full solved file.
How do I get the full solved paper on WhatsApp?
Send a WhatsApp message to 9899436384 mentioning BHIC 108 and June 2026. Our team replies with the file details and price, and after confirmation the PDF is shared on the same chat. It contains complete answers to all 8 questions, which means the 2 shown here plus the 6 not shown, including every short-note option under Q4 and Q8.
Which BHIC 108 topics repeat most often in IGNOU papers?
In the 7 official papers we checked, from June 2022 to June 2026, five topic areas appeared every time: the English Revolution and radical sects, rationalism and empiricism, the Enlightenment, agrarian and population change, and colonial trade with the Great Divergence. The seventeenth-century crisis and mercantilism followed closely, each appearing in 6 of the 7 papers.
How long should an answer be in the exam?
The paper itself sets the length. Long questions ask for about 400 words each and carry 20 marks, while each short note under Q4 and Q8 asks for about 200 words and carries 10 marks. Our solved file follows the same limits, so you can practise writing to time and see how much detail fits.
Is BHIC 108 a core course?
Yes. BHIC 108 Rise of the Modern West-II is a 6-credit core course in IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (Honours) History programme, and the 2026-27 assignment booklet also lists it for BAFHI. It continues from BHIC 106 and covers Europe and the Atlantic world in the 17th and 18th centuries across 13 units in a single course book.
How are BHIC 108 marks counted in the final result?
IGNOU gives the term-end examination 70 per cent weight and the assignments 30 per cent. The course has three tutor-marked assignments totalling 100 marks. That is why a strong performance in the 100-mark term-end paper matters most for your final grade in this course.
Who wrote and checked the solved answers?
The answers were written by the subject team at Unnati Educations, working from the IGNOU course book and older official papers, and reviewed by Sheetal Kirola for accuracy, word length and structure before release. Unnati Educations is an independent study-support provider and is not part of IGNOU or connected with its examination process.
12. Who Wrote and Checked the BHIC 108 Answers
The BHIC 108 answers were written by Prateek Talwar and reviewed by Sheetal Kirola.
Prateek Talwar, founder of Unnati Educations, leads the IGNOU solved-paper series and prepares answers from the course book and the official term-end paper. Sheetal Kirola, Academic Head (M.Ed.), checks every name, date, historian's view and unit mapping before release.