History Revision: Transition to the Modern World, Industrial Revolution, and Age of Revolutions

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, movements, and concepts from the four historical lecture sources, detailing the transition to the Modern Age, the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Revolutions, and developments in the United States.

Periodization of History

The classification of history into distinct time periods—ancient, medieval, and modern—to bring order, continuity, and perspective to historical events and processes.

Primary Sources

Original records and uninterpreted evidence created during the period being studied, including official records, literary works, artwork, photographs, monuments, and archaeological artifacts.

Secondary Sources

Works such as books, reviews, reports, and articles written by scholars and historians who research, interpret, and analyze primary source materials.

Renaissance

A major movement of change and discovery that spread across Europe between 1300 CE and 1600 CE, representing a revival of classical Graeco-Roman learning and a new spirit in all fields of life.

Rationalism

A philosophy or belief asserting that all behavior, opinions, and knowledge should be grounded in reason and logical inquiry rather than emotion or religious dogma.

Humanism

A Renaissance system of thought that shifted focus from divine affairs, heaven, and the afterlife to human experiences, potential, creativity, and addressing human problems through reason.

Reformation

A 16th-century protest movement against the authoritarianism, corruption, and oppressive practices of the Roman Catholic Church, also known as the Protestant Movement.

Indulgences

Certificates sold by the Roman Catholic Church during the medieval period claiming to grant divine pardon for sins and passage to heaven without penance.

Counter Reformation

A reform movement initiated within the Roman Catholic Church to correct its internal abuses, revitalize spiritual devotion, and restore its credibility following the Protestant Reformation.

Domestic System

A pre-industrial setup where goods were produced manually at home by artisans and craftspeople using simple tools to meet local community needs.

Putting-out System

A pre-industrial arrangement in which merchants supplied raw materials to artisans working in homes or workshops and subsequently sold the finished products in distant markets.

Industrial Revolution

A radical transformation starting in mid-18th century England that fundamentally altered production and distribution by replacing manual labor and domestic manufacturing with machines and the factory system.

Enclosure Movement

A process in Britain where wealthy landlords took over and consolidated small landholdings, boosting agricultural output through modern methods while causing large-scale rural displacement.

Capitalism

An economic system in which the means of production (capital) are privately owned by individuals (capitalists) who hire wage labor to generate profits.

Socialism

An economic and social system emerged as a reaction to capitalism, where the means of production are owned by society as a whole to eliminate class divisions and share profits equally.

Imperialism

A policy of extending a nation's power and domination over the political, economic, and cultural life of weaker overseas nations through military force or colonization.

Colonialism

The practice by which a powerful nation acquires partial or complete political control over another country to exploit its raw materials and secure markets for manufactured goods.

No Taxation Without Representation

A famous slogan used by American colonists arguing that the British Parliament lacked the authority to tax them because the colonies had no elected representatives in Parliament.

Boston Tea Party

A 1773 act of rebellion where American colonists disguised as Native Americans boarded British ships in Boston harbor and dumped 340 crates of tea into the sea to protest British taxes.

Declaration of Independence

A document signed on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia proclaiming the thirteen American colonies free from British rule and asserting equal, fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Third Estate

The unprivileged social class in pre-revolutionary France—comprising peasants, artisans, urban workers, and the middle class—that bore the entire burden of taxation without political rights.

Tennis Court Oath

A pledge taken on 20 June 1789 by representatives of the French Third Estate, declaring themselves a National Assembly and vowing not to separate until drafting a new constitution for France.

Storming of the Bastille

An attack on the Bastille fortress-prison in Paris on 14 July 1789 by an angry French mob, symbolizing the overthrow of royal tyranny and marking the start of the French Revolution.

Coup

A sudden, illegal, and frequently violent seizure of governmental authority, such as Napoleon Bonaparte's takeover of the French government in 1799.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

An 1852 anti-slavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe that exposed the cruelties of southern slavery and galvanized abolitionist opposition in the Northern United States.

Confederacy

The alliance of Southern slave-holding American states that seceded from the United States (the Union) to defend slavery, precipitating the American Civil War.