Unit 1 Vocab Terms APWorld

Paleolithic Era

The long period during which human societies sustained themselves through gathering, hunting, and fishing without the practice of agriculture. Such ways of living persisted well after the advent of agriculture in many places.

Pastoral society

Based on an alternative kind of food-producing economy focused int he raising of livestock, pastoral societies emerged int he Afro-Eurasian world where settled agriculture was difficult or impossible. Pastoral peoples often led their animals to seasonal grazing grounds rather than settling permanently in a single location.

Patriarchy

A social system in which women have been made subordinate to men in the family and in society; often linked to the development of plow-based agriculture, intensive warfare, and private property.

Chiefdom

A societal grouping governed by a chief who typically relies on generosity, ritual status, or charisma rather than force to win obedience from the people.

Confucianism

The Chinese philosophy first enunciated by Confucius, advocating the moral example of superiors as the key element of social order.

China’s economic revolution

The collapse of China’s imperial order, officially at the hands of organized revolutionaries but for the most part under the weight of the troubles that had overwhelmed the imperial government for the previous century.

Hinduism

A religion based on the many beliefs, practices, sects, rituals, and philosophies in India; in the thinking of nineteenth-century Indian reformers, it was expressed as a distinctive tradition, an Indian religion wholly equivalent to Christianity.

Han Dynasty

The Chinese dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) that emerged after the Qin dynasty collapsed, establishing political and cultural patterns that lasted into the twentieth century.

Hangzhou

China’s capital during the Song dynasty, with a population at its height of more than a million people.

Hangul

A phonetic alphabet developed in Korea in the fifteenth century in a movie towards greater cultural independence from China.

Chu nom

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

Constantinople

New capital for the eastern half of the Roman empire; Constantinople’s highly defensible and economically important site helped ensure the city’s cultural and strategic importance for many centuries.

Upanishads

Indian mystical and philosophical works written between 800 and 400 BCE

Umma

The community of all believers in Islam, bound by common belief rather than territory, language, or tribe

Ulama

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

Siddhartha Gautama

Buddha. The Indian prince whose exposure to human suffering led him to develop a path to Englishtenment, which became the basis for the emerging religous tradition of Buddhism; lived around 566-around 486 BCE.

Saint Paul

An early convert and missionary and the first great popularizer of Christianity, especially to Gentile (non-Jewish communities)

Sufism

An understanding of the Islamic faith that saw the worldly success of Islamic civilization as a distraction and deviation from the purer spirituality of Muhammad’s time. By renouncing the material world, meditating on the words of the Quran, chanting the names of God, using music and dance, and venerating Muhammed and various (saints), Sufis pursued an interior life, seeking to tame the ego and achieve spiritual union with Allah.

Song dynasty

The Chinese dynasty (960-1279) that rose to power after the Tang dynasty. During the Song dynasty, an explosion of scholarship gave rise to Neo-Confucianism, and a revolution in agricultural and industrial production made China the richest and most populated country on the planet.

Seljuk Turkic Empire

An empire of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, centered in Persia and present-day Iraq. Seljuk rulers adopted the Muslim title of sultan (ruler) as part of their conversion to Islam.

Silk Roads

a vast network of overland trade routes that connected East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean across Afro-Eurasia

Sea Roads

The world’s largest sea-based system of communication and exchange before 1500 CE. Centered on India, it stretched from southern China to eastern Africa.

Srivijaya

A Malay kingdom that dominated the critical choke point in Indian Ocean trade at the Straits of Malacca between 670 and 1025 CE. Like other places in Southeast Asia, Srivijaya absorbed various cultural influences from India.

Theravada Buddhism

“Teaching of the Elders”, the early form of Buddhism accordingg to which the Buddha was a wise teacher but not divine; emphasizes practices rather than beliefs.

Mahayana Buddhism

“Greath Vehicle”, the popular development of Buddhism in the early centuries of the Common Era, which gives a much greater role to supernatural beings and to compassion and proved to be more popular than original (Theravada) Buddhism.

Bakhti Movement

Meaning “worhsip”, this Hindu movement began in south India and moved northward between 600 and 1000 CE; it involved the intense adoration of and identification with a particular deity through songs, prayers, and rituals.

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.

Byzantine Empire

The surviving eastern Roman Empire and one of the centers of Christendom during the medieval centuries. The Byzantine Empire was founded at the end of the third century, when the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves, and survived until its conquest by Muslim forces in 1453.

Muhammed Ibn Abdullah

The Prophet and founder of Islam whose religious revelations became the Quran, bringing a radically monotheistic religion to Arabia and the world.

Daoism

A Chinese philosophy/popular religion that advocates a simple and unpretentious way of living and alignment with the natural world, founded by the legendary figure of Laozi.

Judaism

The monotheistic religion developed int he Middle East by the Hebrews, emphasizing a sole personal god (Yahweh) with concerns for social justice.

Jesus of Nazareth

A peasant/artisan “wisdom teacher” and Jewish mystic whose life, teachings, death , and alleged resurrection gave rise to the new religion of Christianity.

Quran

Also transliterated as Qur’an and Koran, this is the most holy text of Islam, which records the words of God through revelations given to the Prophet Muhammed.

Foot binding

The Chinese practice of tightly wrapping girls’ feet to keep them small, prevalent int he Song dynasty and later; an emphasis on small size and delicacy was central to views of female beauty.

Abbasid caliphate

An Arab dynasty of caliphs (successors to the Prophet) who governed much for the Islamic world from its capital in Baghdad beginning in 750 CE. After 900 CE that empire increasingly fragmented until its overthrow by the Mongols in 1258.

Al-Andalus

Arabic name for Spain, most of which was conquered by Arab and Berber forces between 711 and 718 CE. Muslim Spain was represented a point of encounter between the Islamic world and Christian Europe.

Angkor Wat

The largest religious structure in the premodern world, this temple was built by the powerful Angkor kingdom (located in modern Cambodia) in the twelfth century CE. to express a Hindu understanding of the cosmos centered on a mythical Mount Meru, the home of the gods in Hindu tradition. It was later used by Buddhists as well.

Ottoman Empire

Major Islamic state centered on Antaolia that came out include the Balkans, parts of the Middle East, and much of North Africa; lasted in one form or another from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century.