AP World History: Global Transitions and Interconnections Review

Fundamental vocabulary terms, historical concepts, and significant events from the global history curriculum covering periods from c. 1200 to the present.

Song Dynasty

A Chinese dynasty ($960\text{--}1279$) that was the world’s most commercialized society, utilizing a centralized bureaucracy and a meritocratic Civil Service Exam for social mobility.

Champa Rice

A drought-resistant, fast-ripening grain from Vietnam that allowed for triple harvests in China, facilitating a population explosion and the expansion of cultivated land to a peak of $720$ million mu.

Grand Canal

An efficient waterway transportation system that connected the fertile south of China to the political north, making China the most populous and interconnected trading area globally.

Abbasid Caliphate

A centralized Islamic empire centered in Baghdad ($750\text{--}1258$) that utilized the vizier system and managed the House of Wisdom before fragmenting into Turkic states.

Mamluk Sultanate

A state founded by Turkic slave soldiers who overthrew their masters in Egypt, famous for halting Mongol expansion at the Battle of Ain Jalut in $1260$.

Delhi Sultanate

Turkic warlords who conquered North India, introduced Sharia law and Persian administrative practices, and blended Hindu and Islamic artistic styles.

Chinampas

Floating gardens built in Lake Texcoco by the Aztec (Mexica) Empire to provide agriculture for a population of $22$ million people.

Mit’a System

A mandatory public service labor tax used by the Inca to build infrastructure like a $10,000\, ext{mile}$ road network, later adapted by the Spanish for forced mining labor.

Mansa Musa

The ruler of the Mali Empire whose $1325$ pilgrimage to Mecca distributed so much gold in Cairo that it depressed global gold prices for a decade.

Feudalism

A decentralized social and political system in Europe based on mutual obligation, where kings granted land (fiefs) to lords in exchange for military support.

Pax Mongolica

A period of Mongolian Peace during which the Mongol Empire guarded Silk Road trade routes and facilitated the transfer of Arabic numerals and Greco-Islamic medical knowledge to Europe.

Devshirme System

The Ottoman practice of recruiting Christian boys to be converted to Islam and trained as an elite military-bureaucratic class known as Janissaries.

Protestant Reformation

A religious movement initiated by Martin Luther’s $95$ Theses that challenged Catholic authority, leading to the rise of Protestantism and the Thirty Years’ War.

Columbian Exchange

The massive global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases (such as smallpox) between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas following the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

Casta System

A rigid racial hierarchy in the Americas based on ancestry, with Peninsulares at the top, followed by Criollos, Mestizos, Mulattoes, Indios, and Negros.

Mercantilism

An economic policy used by European powers to maximize profits from colonies through high tariffs and the use of joint-stock companies.

Toussaint L’Ouverture

The leader of the Haitian Revolution, which became the first successful slave revolt to result in an independent nation.

Meiji Restoration

Japan’s rapid modernization and industrialization effort starting in $1868$ to resist Western influence by abolishing feudalism and establishing a constitutional monarchy.

Social Darwinism

A theory applying biological evolution to society, used by imperial powers to justify colonization as a "civilizing mission" of naturally superior nations.

Berlin Conference

An $1884$ meeting where European powers partitioned Africa into artificial colonies without regard for existing ethnic or linguistic groups.

MANIA

An acronym representing the five major causes of World War I: Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Assassination.

Great Depression

A global economic crisis triggered by the $1929$ U.S. stock market crash, resulting in over $30$ million people being unemployed by $1932$.

Containment

A U.S. Cold War policy, including the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, intended to prevent the spread of communism beyond its $1945$ borders.

Green Revolution

A mid-$20\text{th}$ century movement that used genetic engineering to develop high-yield, pest-resistant grains to increase the global food supply.

Economic Liberalization

The shift away from state-controlled models toward free-market approaches, exemplified by the policies of Deng Xiaoping in China and Augusto Pinochet in Chile.