AP World History: Modern - Unit 2: Networks of Exchange

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the commercial, political, cultural, and environmental developments of AP World History Unit 2: Networks of Exchange (c. 1200 – c. 1450).

Kashgar

A powerful Silk Roads trading city located in the Uyghur Region in China's far west.

Samarkand

A major Silk Roads trading city in southeastern Uzbekistan that is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia.

Caravanserai

Roadside rest areas and inns established along overland trade routes to shelter camel caravans.

Bills of exchange

A commercial financial innovation functioning like checks that facilitated long-distance trade.

Banking houses

Commercial institutions, prominently developed under the Abbasids, that supported new forms of credit and money economies.

Paper money

A currency innovation developed in trade economies that was lighter and easier to transport than coins.

Pax Mongolica

The era of relative peace established under the Mongol Empire that facilitated Afro-Eurasian trade, communication, and economic exchange across conquered networks.

Mongol khanates

The four regional imperial successor states that replaced collapsed empires across Eurasia: the Yuan Dynasty (China), the Golden Horde (Russia), the Chagatai Khanate (Central Asia), and the Ilkhanate (Persia).

Uyghur script

A cursive-joining alphabet adapted by the Mongol Empire to represent and record the Mongolian language.

Arabic numerals

A mathematical numbering system transferred to Europe through interregional contact during the period of expanded trade networks.

Greco-Islamic medical knowledge

Scientific and medical learning transferred to western Europe through contacts such as the Crusades and interactions in Al-Andalus.

City-states of the Swahili Coast

Commercial coastal trading states in East Africa, such as Kilwa, shaped by Islam and a synthesis of Arabic and Bantu cultures.

Gujarat

A powerful trading state located on the western coast of India that grew through its participation in Indian Ocean commerce.

Sultanate of Malacca

A Muslim Malay dynasty and commercial power founded c. 1400 by Paramesvara in Southeast Asia.

Diasporic communities

Enclaves and merchant settlements (emporia) set up along trade routes where travelers introduced their own cultural traditions and adopted indigenous customs through syncretism.

Zheng He

A Ming Admiral who led massive Chinese maritime expeditions across the Indian Ocean until 1431 with crews of up to 28,000 aboard large junks.

Monsoon winds

Seasonal winds that dictated early Indian Ocean trade travel by governing maritime weather and sailing directions.

Lateen sail

A triangular sail technology that gave mariners the ability to sail against the wind in the Indian Ocean.

Camel saddle

A transportation technology that facilitated long-distance overland caravan trade across the Sahara.

Trans-Saharan Trade

The gold-salt exchange network across North and West Africa, conducted by groups such as the Tuareg and Berbers and spurred by the 7th-century introduction of the camel from Arabia.

Sundiata

The founder of the Mali Empire known as "The Lion King," whose accomplishments were recounted orally by griots.

Griots

Traditional West African storytellers who preserved and orally recited cultural histories such as the Epic of Sundiata.

Mansa Musa

A Muslim ruler of the Mali Empire who undertook a famous Hajj pilgrimage in 1324–1325 and controlled vast wealth from alluvial Niger River gold mining.

Gunpowder

A Chinese technological innovation that diffused across trade networks, ultimately rendering traditional castles obsolete in warfare.

Paper

A manufacturing technology originating in China that diffused across trade routes and spurred increased literacy and book production.

Ibn Battuta

A traveler and scholar who journeyed extensively and wrote records about his travels throughout Dar al-Islam.

Margery Kempe

An English Christian mystic who documented her visions of Jesus and authored the first autobiography in the English language.

Marco Polo

A Venetian traveler who wrote about his Eurasian travels and his service at Kublai Khan's court.

Champa rice

A fast-ripening, quick-maturing rice variety diffused into East Asia that greatly expanded food availability and agricultural productivity.

Bubonic plague

An epidemic pathogen that diffused along Eurasian trade routes secured by the Mongols, spreading from China into Europe.