Unit 1-2: The Global Tapestry and Networks of Exchange

Comprehensive practice flashcards reviewing core vocabulary terms, cultural concepts, and analytical questions for Unit 1 and Unit 2: The Global Tapestry and Networks of Exchange.

What was a daimyo in feudal Japan?

A powerful regional landholding lord who commanded samurai warriors and controlled extensive estates under the supreme military authority of the shogun.

What is kana in Japanese writing?

A phonetic Japanese syllabary system developed alongside borrowed Chinese characters (kanji) to represent native Japanese sounds and literature.

What are kami in Japanese tradition?

Sacred spirits or divine entities associated with ancestors, natural phenomena, landscapes, and forces of nature central to the Shinto faith.

What was the Silla kingdom?

A Korean kingdom that allied with the Chinese Tang dynasty to unify the Korean peninsula, maintaining political autonomy while engaging in China's tributary system.

What is a dhow?

A traditional Arab sailing vessel equipped with triangular lateen sails, widely used for maritime commerce across the Indian Ocean network.

What is cultural diffusion?

The geographic spreading of ideas, technologies, religions, customs, and goods from one society or cultural group to another through trade, migration, or conquest.

What was Angkor Wat?

A monumental Hindu-turned-Buddhist temple complex built in the Khmer Empire (modern-day Cambodia), illustrating the integration of Indian cultural and religious traditions in Southeast Asia.

Who were the pochteca in the Aztec Empire?

A specialized hereditary class of long-distance merchants who gathered luxury goods across Mesoamerica and often gathered strategic intelligence for the Aztec state.

What is hangul?

The phonetic Korean alphabet commissioned in the 15th century under King Sejong to replace complex Chinese characters and increase domestic literacy.

What is the umma?

The unified global community of all Muslim believers, established to transcend ancestral, tribal, and ethnic divisions under a common religious identity.

What was the hijra?

The 622 CE migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his early followers from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina), marking the foundation of the Muslim community and year one of the Islamic calendar.

What is sharia?

The comprehensive legal and moral code of Islam, derived from the Quran and the Hadith (recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad).

What was the jizya?

A head tax levied by Islamic states on non-Muslim protected subjects (dhimmi), granting them religious freedom and protection in exchange for payment.

Who are the ulama?

Orthodox Islamic scholars, jurists, and theologians who preserved, interpreted, and transmitted Islamic law, theology, and traditions across the Muslim world.

What is Sufism?

A mystical branch of Islam focusing on direct, personal communion with the divine through meditation, asceticism, poetry, and emotional devotion.

What are the Five Pillars of Islam (Shahada, Salah, Zakat, Sawm, Hajj)?

The core practices of Islam: Shahada (profession of faith), Salah (daily ritual prayers), Zakat (charitable almsgiving), Sawm (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

Who was Ibn Battuta?

A 14th-century Moroccan Islamic legal scholar and traveler who journeyed over 73,000 miles across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and China, recording accounts of Dar al-Islam.

What is a griot?

A traditional West African storyteller, oral historian, and musician responsible for preserving community genealogies, histories, and cultural traditions.

What does matrilineal descent mean?

A social system in which familial lineage, clan membership, and the inheritance of property or titles pass through the female line.

What was the Swahili civilization?

A maritime commercial network of East African coastal city-states that blended indigenous Bantu culture and language with Arab, Persian, and Islamic trading influences.

Who was Mansa Musa?

A 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire whose lavish distribution of gold during his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca highlighted West Africa's vast wealth to the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds.

What is inflation in an economic context?

A broad, continuous rise in the general price level of goods and services, often triggered by a sudden surge in the money supply or influx of precious metals that devalues currency.

What was the Golden Horde?

The northwestern Mongol khanate that subjugated Russia from the 13th to the 15th century, exerting indirect control by extracting heavy tribute through local Russian princes.

What does the title khan signify?

A supreme ruler, sovereign monarch, or paramount military chieftain in Mongol and Turkic pastoral nomadic societies.

What was a kuriltai?

A political and military council of Mongol tribal chiefs and royal princes assembled to make state decisions, approve military campaigns, and elect the supreme Great Khan.

What was the Yuan dynasty?

The Mongol dynasty ruling China from 1271 to 1368, established by Khubilai Khan, which incorporated Chinese imperial administrative methods while reserving top governance roles for Mongols.

Who was Khubilai Khan?

The grandson of Chinggis Khan who defeated the Song dynasty, founded the Yuan dynasty, and established his capital at Daidu (modern Beijing).

What was the White Lotus Society?

A clandestine Chinese millenarian Buddhist movement and secret society that organized popular peasant rebellions against Mongol Yuan rule.

Who was Hulegu?

The Mongol ruler and grandson of Chinggis Khan who captured and destroyed Baghdad in 1258, ended the Abbasid Caliphate, and founded the Ilkhanate of Persia.

What were the Crusades?

A series of Catholic Church-sanctioned military expeditions from Western Europe between 1095 and the late 13th century aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and the Levant from Muslim control.

What was footbinding in Chinese history?

A patriarchal practice that expanded among elite families during the Song dynasty, tightly binding the feet of young girls to break bones and alter shape as a symbol of domesticity, refinement, and social status.

What is selective borrowing?

The process where a society voluntarily adopts specific foreign cultural elements, technologies, or institutions while deliberately rejecting others, as seen in Japan's adoption of Chinese culture.

What is Animism?

The religious belief that natural objects, animals, plants, geographic formations, and inanimate phenomena possess spiritual agency or souls.

What was Zoroastrianism?

An ancient Persian monotheistic and dualistic religion founded by Zoroaster, centered on cosmic conflict between the benevolent creator Ahura Mazda and the evil spirit Angra Mainyu.

What are primary Confucian Values?

A philosophical framework prioritizing filial piety (respect for parents and ancestors), social harmony through rigid hierarchy, moral self-cultivation, proper conduct (li), and benevolent rule (ren).

What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?

1) All life involves suffering; 2) suffering is caused by selfish desire and attachment; 3) suffering can be extinguished by overcoming desire; 4) freedom from suffering is attained via the Eightfold Path.

What key environmental and technological features governed the Indian Ocean trade routes?

Predictable seasonal monsoon winds, maritime innovations like lateen sails, sternpost rudders, and magnetic compasses, and the transport of bulk staples alongside luxury commodities.

What were the primary reasons for the spread of Buddhism across Asia?

Its transmission along commercial routes by traveling merchants, the creation of monastic rest houses, royal patronage from monarchs such as Ashoka, and a universal message unconstrained by the caste system.

How did Buddhist doctrines change when introduced into China?

It evolved primarily into Mahayana and Pure Land traditions, absorbing Daoist vocabulary (equating dharma with dao), incorporating Confucian concepts of filial piety, and venerating savior figures called Bodhisattvas.

What was Great Zimbabwe?

A prosperous southeastern African inland city-state known for massive stone enclosures built without mortar, which accumulated wealth by controlling regional cattle herds and the gold trade linked to the Indian Ocean.

Why did the landscape of trade change in the Indian Ocean during the classical and post-classical periods?

Technological improvements in navigation and larger ship designs coincided with the rise of prosperous imperial economies (Tang/Song China and the Islamic Caliphates), shifting routes from coastal hops to open-ocean bulk shipping.

How did leaders in Southeast Asia incorporate religious beliefs from India?

Rulers adopted Hinduism and Buddhism to reinforce state legitimacy, casting themselves as god-kings (devarajas), employing Indian brahmins as court advisors, and constructing monumental state temples like Angkor Wat.

How did the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties differ in their political and social emphasis?

The Han established the centralized Confucian imperial model; the Tang pursued vast military conquest and cosmopolitan openness; the Song emphasized scholar-gentry civil bureaucracy, economic output, and Neo-Confucian conservatism while de-emphasizing military expansion.

Why was there rapid population growth during the Tang-Song Era?

Agricultural breakthroughs, especially the introduction of fast-ripening and drought-resistant Champa rice from Vietnam, which allowed double-cropping alongside improved canal systems and iron plow tools.

What were China's major industrial outputs and innovations during the Tang-Song Era?

Large-scale iron and steel metallurgy, gunpowder weaponry, porcelain production, magnetic compasses, woodblock and movable-type printing, and paper currency (flying cash).

What were 3 positive trends in the lives of women in Song China despite rising patriarchy?

Women maintained control over their dowries and property, retained legal inheritance rights within marriage, and increasingly managed domestic household finances and family retail operations.

How did the Chinese and northern nomadic peoples mutually influence each other?

Nomads adopted Chinese silk, manufactured goods, bureaucratic titles, and Buddhism, while northern Chinese embraced nomadic equestrian warfare tactics, cavalry horses, clothing styles, and court entertainment through the tributary system.

How did China influence Korea and Vietnam, and how did their adoptions differ?

Korea adopted Confucianism, Buddhism, and civil service exams while retaining entrenched aristocratic control; Vietnam adopted Chinese bureaucratic structures and agriculture but fiercely preserved indigenous customs, village autonomy, and female authority.

In what different ways did Japanese and Korean women experience pressure from Confucian values?

Korean women experienced severe erosion of property rights, inheritance, and social freedom due to strict Neo-Confucian adherence; Japanese women preserved greater personal status, property ownership, and literary agency under selective borrowing.

What were the major sources of opposition to Buddhism in China, and why was it considered a threat?

Confucian and Daoist officials condemned it as an unfilial foreign faith whose celibate monks abandoned family lineages, while the imperial state targeted tax-exempt, wealthy monasteries as drains on royal revenues.

How were the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad similar in their historical impacts?

All three emerged as spiritual reformers challenging existing social inequalities and orthodoxies, emphasized moral responsibility and compassionate living, and established universal traditions welcoming ordinary people.

What is the core difference between Shia and Sunni Islam?

Sunnis held that the caliph should be selected by the Muslim community based on capability and adherence to the Sunnah, whereas Shia believed legitimate leadership belonged strictly to blood descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his cousin and son-in-law Ali.

How were non-Muslims treated in Islamic Spain (al-Andalus)?

As protected subjects (dhimmi), Christians and Jews paid the jizya tax, maintained religious autonomy, held civic offices, and participated in vibrant intellectual exchanges during periods of convivencia (coexistence).

Why did merchants, monarchs, and educators in West Africa embrace Islam?

Merchants secured access to trans-Saharan commercial networks and common contract law; monarchs gained bureaucratic literacy, administrative advisors, and international prestige; educators established Islamic libraries and universities like Sankore in Timbuktu.

What accounts for the political and military success of the Mongols?

Unmatched horsemanship and composite bow archery, a disciplined decimal military structure, psychological warfare through calculated terror, integration of conquered engineers, and a swift communication network (the Yam system).

How did Mongol rule change China, and how were the Mongols changed by China?

The Mongols unified fragmented Chinese regions, improved roads and canals, and established the Yuan dynasty; in turn, the Mongols adopted Chinese imperial court ceremonies, administrative taxation, and Tibetan Buddhism while retaining ethnic dominance.

How was Mongol rule in Persia different from Mongol rule in China?

In Persia, Mongols converted to Islam, heavily patronized Persian bureaucracy, intermarried with local elites, and thoroughly assimilated, whereas in China, Mongols maintained rigid ethnic separation and refused to assimilate culturally.

What was distinctive about the Russian experience of Mongol rule?

The Mongols exercised indirect rule from the southern steppes without occupying Russian cities, collecting tribute via local Russian princes (such as those in Moscow), which shielded the Russian Orthodox Church and centralized Moscow's power.

How did the Crusades affect Western Europe?

They stimulated European demand for Middle Eastern and Asian goods, enriched Mediterranean maritime cities like Venice, reintroduced classical Greco-Arabic knowledge, and weakened feudal nobility in favor of centralized monarchies.

How did borrowing from other countries shape European civilization during this period?

Western Europe assimilated key Asian innovations—including Chinese gunpowder, papermaking, movable type, and the magnetic compass, as well as Arab mathematics and navigational charts—fueling European technological and maritime expansion.