AMSCO 2019 World History Modern: Unit 2 Vocabulary

magnetic compass (East Asia)

Chinese invention that aided navigation by showing which direction was north (middle east)

rudder (East Asia)

the hinged plate at the back and bottom of a boat, used for steering

junk (East China)

A very large flatbottom sailing ship produced in the Tang and Song Empires, specially designed for long-distance commercial travel.

Mongol Empire (East Asia)

an empire founded in the 12th century by Genghis Khan, which reached its greatest territorial extent in the 13th century, encompassing the larger part of Asia and extending westward to the Dnieper River in eastern Europe.

Trade Cities

Cities that grew because of trade

Kashgar (East Asia and Central Asia)

a central trading point where the Eastern and Western Silk Roads met.

Caravanserai

inn or rest station for caravans

money economy

an economic system based on money rather than barter

flying cash (East Asia)

Enabled merchants to deposit gold or cash at one location and draw the equivalent in cash or merchandise elsewhere in China.

paper money (East Asia)

legal currency issued on paper; it developed in China as a convenient alternative to metal coins

Banking Houses (Europe and middle east)

These European banks developed during the Middle Ages to aid trade. Along with innovations such as bills of exchange, or bank drafts, and credit, the rise of banking houses supported the development of interregional trade in luxury goods.

bill of exchange

issued by a banker in one city to a merchant who could exchange it for cash in a distant city, thus freeing him from traveling with gold, which was easily stolen

Hanseatic League

An economic and defensive alliance of the free towns in northern Germany, founded about 1241 and most powerful in the fourteenth century.

Mongols

A people of this name is mentioned as early as the records of the Tang Empire, living as nomads in northern Eurasia. After 1206 they established an enormous empire under Genghis Khan, linking western and eastern Eurasia.

Khan

A Mongol ruler

Kuriltai

Meeting of all Mongol chieftains at which the supreme ruler of all tribes was selected

Genghis Khan

Founder of the Mongol Empire.

Khanates

Four regional Mongol kingdoms that arose following the death of Chinggis Khan.

Pax Mongolica

The period of approximately 150 years of relative peace and stability created by the Mongol Empire.

Batu

ruler of the golden horde; one of Chinggis Khan's grandsons; responsible for the invasion of Russia beginning in 1236.

Golden Horde

Mongol khanate founded by Genghis Khan's. It was based in southern Russia and quickly adopted both the Turkic language and Islam. Also known as the Kipchak Horde.

Hulegu

Grandson of Chinggis Khan and ruler of Ilkhan khanate; captured and destroyed Abbasid Baghdad.

Kublai Khan

(1215-1294) Grandson of Genghis Khan and founder of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China.

Yuan Dynasty

(1279-1368 CE) The dynasty with Mongol rule in China; centralized with bureaucracy but structure is different: Mongols on top->Persian bureaucrats->Chinese bureuacrats.

Zhu Yuanzhang

The given name of the Hongwu emperor, the founder of the Ming dynasty

Ming Dynasty

Succeeded Mongol Yuan dynasty in China in 1368; lasted until 1644; initially mounted huge trade expeditions to southern Asia and elsewhere, but later concentrated efforts on internal development within China.

Gobi Desert

A high desert in China and Mongolia.

White Lotus Society

Secret religious society dedicated to overthrow of Yuan dynasty in China; typical of peasant resistance to Mongol rule

Bubonic Plague

disease brought to Europe from the Mongols during the Middle Ages. It killed 1/3 of the population and helps end Feudalism. Rats, fleas.

Malacca (Melaka)

Important Portuguese control area because all commerce went through the strait; controlled the maritime highway. Principal clearinghouse of trade in the eastern Indian Ocean. Here, the Portuguese oversaw shipping between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Gujarat

Region of western India famous for trade and manufacturing.

Swahili city-states

trading states along the east coast of Africa, from Kenya to Mozambique. Provided and connected african raw material to the rest of the Indian Ocean world--Arabia, India, Persia, China and vice-versa. Its main exports include ebony, gold, ivory, and sandalwood.

Calicut

Great spice port of India where da Gama landed and traded

Spice Islands

The Indonesian archipelago of the Moluccas. Was the largest producers of mace, nutmeg, cloves and pepper in the world.

Indian Ocean Basin

connected East Africa, Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia with China and Japan

monsoon winds

Seasonal winds in the Indian Ocean caused by the differences in temperature between the rapidly heating and cooling landmasses of Africa and Asia and the slowly changing ocean waters.

Lateen Sail

triangular sail that made it possible to sail against the wind; used in the Indian Ocean trade

Stern Rudder

a small piece of wood in the back so that you can steer a large vessel more effectively.

Astrolabe

An instrument used by sailors to determine their location by observing the position of the stars and planets

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

E. Africa -> Middle East & India/ Similar conditions to the Atlantic Slave Trade/ Cultural Diffusion

diaspora

A dispersion of people from their homeland

Zheng He

An imperial eunuch and Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships through the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa.

Mali

Empire created by indigenous Muslims in western Sudan of West Africa from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. It was famous for its role in the trans-Saharan gold trade.

Sundiata

the founder of Mali empire. He crushed his enemies and won control of the gold trade routes

Mansa Musa

Emperor of the kingdom of Mali in Africa. He made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca and established trade routes to the Middle East.

Songhai Kingdom

Largest African trading kingdom during its time; Helped rebel against Mali; only lasted for about 100 years

Timbuktu

City on the Niger River in the modern country of Mali. It was founded by the Tuareg as a seasonal camp sometime after 1000. As part of the Mali empire, Timbuktu became a major major terminus of the trans-Saharan trade and a center of Islamic learning.

Mecca

City in western Arabia; birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and ritual center of the Islamic religion.

Trans-Saharan Trade

route across the sahara desert. Major trade route that traded for gold and salt, created caravan routes, economic benefit for controlling dessert, camels played a huge role in the trading

Sahara Desert

World's largest desert that is situated in the northern region of Africa. It covers a significant portion of the African continent and shapes the geography of several African nations.

Arabian Desert

Second largest sand desert in the world. Located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia.

Camel Saddle

An invention which gives camel riders more stability on the animal and its invention and basic idea traveled along the Trans-Saharan Caravan Trade Route. Invented somewhere between 500 and 100 BCE by Bedouin tribes.

Black Death

A deadly plague that swept through Europe between 1347 and 1351

Marco Polo

Venetian merchant and traveler. His accounts of his travels to China offered Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.

lbn battuta

Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan.

Margery Kempe

This person could neither read nor write but dictated one of the earliest autobiographies in English which chronicles her pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and Asia. Acts as best insight that points to a mid. class female experience in the Middle Ages.

Swahili

Bantu language with Arabic loanwords spoken in coastal regions of East Africa.

Urdu

A Persian-influenced literary form of Hindi written in Arabic characters and used as a literary language since the 1300s.

Hangzhou

Capital of later Song dynasty; located near East China Sea; permitted overseas trading; population exceeded 1 million.

Samarkand

an n oasis town along the silk roads; place where merchants & caravans found food, rest, lodging, and markets; hosted travelers from different lands who spoke different languages and had different religions; became cosmopolitan center

Constantinople

Capital of the Byzantine Empire

Cannon

a powerful artillery weapon used in warfare, particularly during the late medieval period, effective in breaching fortified walls and altering siege tactics. Considered a mongol invention using chinese gunpowder, muslim flamethrowers, and european bell-casting techniques.

Uyghur alphabet

was used by Genghis khan in 1204 to represent Mongolia but failed.

Siege Weapons

Mongols incorporated military weapons into army. Like portable towers to attack walled fortifications or catapults.

Moscow

City state in northern Russia that collected additional tributes to resist against Mongol Empire.

Oases

places where human settlement is possible because water from deep underground is brought to the surface, making land fertile.

Bananas

led to spike in population. Indonesian seafarers traveling across the Indian Ocean had introduced it to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sugar and Citrus crops

As caliphs conquered lands beyond Arabian Peninsula, they spread Islam, the Arabic language, and the cultivation of cotton, _____, and ______.

Overgrazing

when them damn animals graze on the grass too much. For example, _______ outside of Great Zimbabwe was so severe that people had to abandon the city in the late 1400s.

Deforestation

When the goddamn tree huggers scream that their trees are being cut down. In feudal Europe, overuse of farm land led to ________.

Soil Erosion

When cutting down trees leads to this (soil gets f***ed up). In feudal Europe, overuse of farm land and cutting down trees led to ________.

Ibn Battuta

21-year-old Muslim scholar (1304-1353), from Morocco. Traveled through Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, Spain, North Africa, and Mali, mainly to Muslim lands.