World History and Cultural Philosophies Practice Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary terms from the lecture notes covering Chinese philosophy, Islamic history, European Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and global colonial trade.

Confucianism

The belief that hierarchy and a family model will bring respect and reverence, and benevolence to a society, emphasizing education and the belief that qualified males can lead in government to bring harmony.

benevolence/ren

A core virtue in Confucianism, a Chinese philosophical tradition, often translated as benevolence, humaneness, or kindness.

the five relationships

A series of social hierarchies in Confucianism consisting of: Ruler-subject, Husband-wife, Father-son, Older brother to young brother, and Friend to friend.

Daoism

A Chinese philosophy where the central thinking is Dao, involving leaving the political and social world.

Daodejing

Also known as the Tao Te Ching or Laozi, this is an ancient Chinese classic text that became a foundational work of Daoism.

Song dynasty

Known as the Golden age of China, characterized by an Industrial Revolution and significant economic power.

Bureaucracy

A governmental system that runs through various departments and administrators.

Chinese Civil Service Exams

A merit-based testing system rooted in Confucian philosophy used to select government officials by requiring mastery of classical texts.

Mandate of Heaven

A concept where a ruler is granted legitimacy and made real as long as the people follow the rules of Confucianism.

Samurai

Members of the warrior class and hereditary military nobility who served as retainers to lords in Japan.

Bushido

The “way of the warrior,” referring to the martial values of the Japanese samurai, including bravery, loyalty, and an emphasis on death over surrender.

Muhammad

($570$-$632$ C.E.) The prophet and founder of Islam, whose religious revelations became the Quran.

Quran

The scripture containing the book of teachings received by Muhammad.

Ulama

Islamic religious scholars, both Sunni and Shia, who shaped the core teachings of Islamic civilization.

Sharia

Islamic law dealing with political, economic, social, and religious life, literally translating to “a path to water.”

Sufism

An understanding of Islam that views worldly success as a distraction, pursuing an interior life focused on renouncing the material world and taming the ego to achieve union with Allah.

Brahmin

A member of the highest traditional Hindu caste, traditionally serving as priests, scholars, and teachers responsible for preserving sacred learning.

Brahman

In Hinduism, the world's soul, which serves as the final and ultimate reality.

Moksha

Liberation and achieving union with Brahman, which involves becoming one with the surrounding atmosphere and leaving the cycle of rebirth.

Samsara

The cycle of rebirth/reincarnation found in both Hinduism and Buddhism.

Karma

The principle where an individual is reincarnated based on their actions.

The Buddha

The founder of Buddhism who attained enlightenment and taught about overcoming suffering.

the eightfold path

The path to nirvana in Buddhism comprising: right views, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

Nirvana

A state of ultimate peace and liberation from the cycle of rebirth in Buddhism.

Al-Andalus

The Muslim name given to Spain.

Swahili civilization

A set of city-states on the East African coast that thrived through trade with other countries.

Mali Empire

A powerful West African empire that controlled trade across the Sahara and was known for its wealth, culture, and the city of Timbuktu.

Trans-Saharan slave trade

A trade period between $1100$ and $1400$ where $5,500$ slaves per year trekked across the desert to work in the homes of wealthy Islamic people.

Timbuktu

A city known for its role as a center of trade, culture, and education during the Mali Empire.

Paul

An early convert to Christianity whose missionary journeys in the eastern Roman Empire founded Christian communities that included non-jews.

Constantine

The emperor of the Roman Empire who died in $377$, known as the first emperor to convert to Christianity and make it the state religion.

Feudalism

A social, political, and economic system where land was held in exchange for service or labor.

Serfdom

The status of being a peasant bound to the manor who provided stable labor and could not leave without permission.

Humanism

An intellectual and cultural movement originating in $14^{th}$-century Italy that shifted focus from theology to the value, agency, and potential of the individual.

The Renaissance

A period of European cultural and intellectual 'rebirth' following the Middle Ages, reviving classical Greek and Roman learning and prioritizing humanism over religion.

Printing press

A machine using movable type to mass-produce printed matter; improved by Gutenberg, it helped spread Information of the Renaissance.

Leonardo di Vinci

An Italian polymath and founding figure of the High Renaissance who embodied the ideals of humanism.

Michelangelo

An Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet during the High Renaissance known for the statue of David.

Niccolo Machiavelli

A Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance.

Holy Roman Empire

A political entity in central Europe that claimed to be the successor to the Roman Empire.

Aztec empire

A powerful $14^{th}$- to $16^{th}$-century Mesoamerican empire centered in central Mexico and established by a Triple Alliance.

Tenochtitlan

The capital of the Aztec Empire founded around $1325$ on an island in Lake Texcoco.

Inca empire

The largest empire in pre-Columbian America, known as Tawantinsuyu, stretching along the Andes from modern-day Peru to Ecuador and Chile.

Flying cash

An early form of paper credit and promissory notes originating in China during the Tang Dynasty ($618$-$907$ AD).

Chinggis Khan

The founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire who united Mongol tribes and launched military campaigns across China and Central Asia.

Yuan dynasty

The first foreign-ruled dynasty in China.

Ming dynasty

The last imperial dynasty of China.

The Black Death

A plague pandemic from $1346$ to $1353$ that killed as many as $50$ million people, perhaps $50\%$ of Europe's $14^{th}$-century population.

Melaka

A historic Malaysian state and its capital city.

Zheng He

A Chinese Muslim eunuch admiral and explorer.

Mansa Musa

The ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire whose reign is regarded as the zenith of Mali's power and prestige.

Hernán Cortés

A Spanish conquistador who led the expedition resulting in the fall of the Aztec Empire in the early $16^{th}$ century.

Little Ice Age

A period of cooler temperatures lasting roughly from the $14^{th}$ to the mid-$19^{th}$ century.

Columbian Exchange

The massive transfer of plants, animals, diseases, culture, technology, and people between the Americas and the Old World starting in $1492$.

Mercantilism

An economic theory aimed at boosting national wealth by maximizing exports, minimizing imports, and accumulating gold and silver.

Hacienda

A large landed estate in Spanish America functioning as a self-sufficient community for agriculture, mining, or ranching.

Mestizo

A person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry, a term originating from Spanish colonization.

Settler colonialism

A mode of domination where exogenous settlers permanently displace indigenous populations to constitute an autonomous political body.

Ottoman Empire

A major Islamic state centered on Anatolia from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century, spanning the Balkans, Middle East, and North Africa.

Devshirme

A draft system in the Ottoman Empire where young Christian boys were forced to join the military through the Janissaries.

Janissaries

An elite military force of the Ottoman Empire made up of forced Christian boys.

Qing dynasty

The final imperial dynasty of China, established by the Manchu people.

Mughal Empire

A dominant early modern Persianate Islamic power ruling the Indian subcontinent, known for its cultural synthesis and the Taj Mahal.

Akbar the Great

The third Mughal emperor (reigned $1556$-$1605$) who transformed the state through conquest, administrative centralization, and religious tolerance.

Jizya

A historic per-capita tax levied on non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis) living under Islamic law.

Songhay Empire

A dominant West African state in the Sahel that succeeded the Mali Empire as the region's largest Islamic civilization.

1517

The year German monk Martin Luther famously initiated the Protestant Reformation by posting his '95 Theses' in Wittenberg.

Martin Luther

A German priest and theologian who served as the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the basis of Lutheranism.

Indulgences

The remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance.

95 Theses

A list of academic propositions written in $1517$ by Martin Luther criticizing the Roman Catholic Church's sale of indulgences.

John Calvin

A French theologian and pastor who served as a reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation.

Counter-Reformation

The period of Catholic resurgence responding to the Protestant Reformations, arising from the decrees of the Council of Trent.

Jesuits

A religious order of clerics regular for men in the Catholic Church established during the Counter-Reformation.

Sikhism

A $15^{th}$-century monotheistic faith founded by Guru Nanak in Punjab emphasizing equality, service, and meditation.

Bhakti

The Hindu path of intense love and devotion towards a personal God as a direct route to moksha.

Scientific Revolution

A movement in the $16^{th}$ and $17^{th}$ centuries in Europe that fundamentally changed how the natural world was understood and investigated.

Copernicus

A Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric model of the universe.

Galileo

An Italian polymath known as the 'father of modern science' for pioneering the experimental scientific method.

Newton

An English physicist who laid the foundations of classical mechanics through his laws of motion and universal gravitation in Principia Mathematica.

The Principia

A foundational $1687$ text by Isaac Newton establishing classical mechanics and the law of universal gravitation.

The Enlightenment

An $18^{th}$-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, individualism, and scientific analysis over tradition.

Adam Smith

A Scottish philosopher and father of modern economics who wrote 'The Wealth of Nations' in $1776$.

The Invisible Hand

A metaphor by Adam Smith representing the self-regulating nature of free markets where individual self-interest promotes societal good.

Laissez-faire

An Enlightenment economic philosophy advocating minimal government interference and championing free markets as self-regulating systems.

John Locke

The 'father of liberalism' who theorized natural rights (life, liberty, property), the social contract, and the concept of humans being born as a blank slate (tabula rasa).

Deism

An Enlightenment-era rationalist philosophy holding that a supreme being created the universe but does not intervene in its affairs.

Checks and balances

An Enlightenment-era concept to prevent tyranny by dividing government power among independent legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Silver trade

The first global economic network, driven by China's demand for silver as currency, facilitating global wealth accumulation.

The Middle Passage

The brutal, forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the transatlantic slave trade.

British East India Company

An English joint-stock company founded in $1600$ that evolved into a massive multinational corporation and ruling authority in the Indian subcontinent.

Dutch East India Company

Founded in $1602$, the world's first multinational corporation and joint-stock company which dominated the spice trade.

trading post empire

A form of imperial expansion where fortified outposts and coastal ports are established to control trade routes rather than governing large territories.

joint stock company

Early commercial organizations where multiple investors pool capital and buy shares of stock.

Tokugawa shogunate

The last feudal military government of Japan ($1603$-$1868$) which brought $250$ years of stability.

African diaspora

The mass dispersion of people of African descent globally, primarily due to the various slave trades.

Shogun

The supreme military dictator and de facto ruler of Japan during its feudal period.

Manila

The capital of the Spanish Philippines, established in $1571$, acting as a crucial hub for maritime trade.

Potosí

A major silver-mining city in Bolivia known for its horrendous working conditions.

Maroons

Enslaved Africans who escaped plantations in the Americas to establish independent free settlements.

Benin

A West African kingdom that actively limited its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade to protect its sovereignty.