AP World History Chapter 2 Key Terms

Song dynasty

(960-1279 CE) The Chinese dynasty that placed much more emphasis on civil administration, industry, education, and arts other than military.

China's economic revolution

Made Song dynasty China "by far the richest, most skilled, and most populous country on earth."

Hangzhou

Capital of Song Dynasty

foot binding

Practice in Chinese society to mutilate women's feet in order to make them smaller; produced pain and restricted women's movement; made it easier to confine women to the household.

hangul

Korean alphabet

chu nom

A variation of Chinese writing developed in Vietnam that became the basis for an independent national literature; "southern script."

bushido

"the way of the warrior"

Abbasid caliphate

Descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, al-Abbas, they overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and ruled an Islamic empire from their capital in Baghdad (founded 762) from 750 to 1258.

Ottoman Empire

Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453-1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe.

al-Andalus

A Muslim-ruled region in what is now Spain, established by the Berbers in the eighth century A.D.

Byzantine Empire

(330-1453) The eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived after the fall of the Western Empire at the end of the 5th century C.E. Its capital was Constantinople, named after the Emperor Constantine.

Constantinople

Capital of the Byzantine Empire

Caesaropapism

Concept relating to the mixing of political and religious authority, as with the Roman emperors, that was central to the church versus state controversy in medieval Europe.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity

A branch of Christianity that developed in the Byzantine Empire and that did not recognize the Pope as its supreme leader

Crusades

A series of holy wars from 1096-1270 AD undertaken by European Christians to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule.

Kievan Rus

A monarchy established in present day Russia in the 6th and 7th centuries. It was ruled through loosely organized alliances with regional aristocrats from. The Scandinavians coined the term "Russia". It was greatly influenced by Byzantine

Western Christendom

Western European branch of Christianity that gradually defined itself as
separate from Eastern Orthodoxy, with a major break in 1054 C.E. that has still not been healed.

Roman Catholic Church

Church established in western Europe during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages with its head being the bishop of Rome or pope.

European Renaissance

A "rebirth" of classical learning that is most often associated with the cultural blossoming of Italy in the period 1350-1500 and that included not just a rediscovery of Greek learning but also major developments in art, as well as growing secularism in society.

Maya civilization

A major civilization of Mesoamerica; flourished from 250 to 900 C.E.

Aztec Empire

Central American empire constructed by the Mexica and expanded greatly during the fifteenth century during the reigns of Itzcoatl and Motecuzoma I.

Inca Empire

Empire in Peru. conquered by Pizarro, who began an empire for the Spanish in 1535