AMSCO AP World History Modern- Unit 1 Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key historical terms, dynasties, systems, and concepts from AMSCO AP World History Modern Unit 1.

Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE)

The Chinese dynasty that placed much more emphasis on civil administration, industry, education, and arts other than military.

Imperial Bureaucracy

Division of an empire into organized provinces to make it easier to control.

Meritocracy

A system in which promotion is based on individual ability or achievement.

Grand Canal

The 1,100-mile (1,700-kilometer) waterway linking the Yellow and the Yangzi Rivers. It was begun in the Han period and completed during the Sui Empire.

Gunpowder

The formula, brought to China in the 400s or 500s, was first used to make fumigators to keep away insect pests and evil spirits. In later centuries it was used to make explosives and grenades and to propel cannonballs, shot, and bullets.

Champa Rice

Quick-maturing rice that can allow two harvests in one growing season. Originally introduced into Champa from India, it was later sent to China as a tribute gift by the Champa state (as part of the tributary system).

Proto-industrialization

Preliminary shift away from agricultural economy in Europe; workers become full- or part-time producers of textile and metal products, working at home but in a capitalist system in which materials, work orders, and ultimate sales depended on urban merchants; prelude to Industrial Revolution.

Artisans

Skilled workers who make goods by hand.

Scholar-gentry

Chinese class created by the marital linkage of the local land-holding aristocracy with the office-holding shi; superseded shi as governors of China.

Foot Binding

Practice in Chinese society to mutilate women's feet in order to make them smaller; produced pain and restricted women's movement; made it easier to confine women to the household.

Woodblock Printing

A form of printing in which an entire page is carved into a block of wood.

Buddhism

A religion based on the teachings of the Buddha.

Theravada Buddhism

Buddhist sect that focuses on the wisdom of the Buddha.

Mahayana Buddhism

Also known as popular Buddhism, it allows people more ways to reach enlightenment and boddhisatvas can help you reach enlightenment.

Tibetan Buddhism

Makes great use of ritual.

Syncretic

A religion that combines several traditions.

Chan Buddhism

Known as Zen in Japan; stressed meditation and appreciation of natural and artistic beauty; popular with members of elite Chinese society.

Zen Buddhism

A Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition.

Filial Piety

In Confucian thought, one of the virtues to be cultivated, a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors.

Neo-Confucianism

Term that describes the resurgence of Confucianism and the influence of Confucian scholars during the T'ang Dynasty; a unification of Daoist or Buddhist metaphysics with Confucian pragmatism.

Heian Period (794 - 1100)

Move the capital to Heian; 300 years of developing a new culture; growth of large estates; arts and literature of china flourished; elaborate court life; personal diaries (pillow book and the tale of genji); moved away from chinese culture.

Feudalism

A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king, in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land.

Mamluk Sultanate

A political unit in Egypt established by Mamluks that defeated the Mongols and the Ayyubid Sultanate, did not set up a consistent, hereditary line of succession, failed to adapt to new warfare and were eventually defeated by the Ottomans, and whose disinterest in trade contributed to their downfall.

Seljuk Turks

Nomadic Turks from Asia who conquered Baghdad in 1055 and allowed the caliph to remain only as a religious leader; they governed strictly.

Sultan

Military and political leader with absolute authority over a Muslim country.

Mongols

A people 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.

Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258 CE)

The caliphate, after the Umayyads, who focused more on administration than conquering. Had a bureaucracy that any Muslim could be a part of.

Mamluks

Under the Islamic system of military slavery, Turkic military slaves who formed an important part of the armed forces of the Abbasid Caliphate of the ninth and tenth centuries. Mamluks eventually founded their own state, ruling Egypt and Syria (1250-1517).

Islam

A religion based on the teachings of the prophet Mohammed which stresses belief in one god (Allah), Paradise and Hell, and a body of law written in the Quran. Followers are called Muslims.

Pillars of Islam

The five core practices required of Muslims: a profession of faith, regular prayer, charitable giving, fasting during Ramadan, and a pilgrimage to Mecca (if financially and physically possible).

Muhammad

Founder of Islam.

Crusaders

Christians of Europe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries that fought for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Sutis

Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking.

House of Wisdom

A center of learning established in Baghdad in the 800s.

Baghdad

Capital of Abbasid dynasty located in Iraq near ancient Persian capital of Ctesiphon.

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Persian scholar who accepted evolution and discussed variation, and kinship of nonliving matter, plants, and animals.

Vijayanagara Empire

An important early modern Indian kingdom centered in the Deccan Plateau, reaching its height from the mid-fourteenth until the mid-sixteenth centuries, characterized by an impressive land revenue collection system centered around elite Nayaka warriors and a military based on cavalry.

Rajput Kingdoms

Set of kingdoms in India that arose after the fall of the Gupta dynasty; hundreds of kingdoms ruled by land-owning Kshatriyas, wealthy due to trade and a good economy, with Hindu beliefs and the practice of sati and purdah.

Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526 CE)

The successors of Mahmud of Ghazni mounted more campaigns, but directed their goals to creating this empire.

Srivijaya Empire

Flourished from the 600s to 1200s; controlled the Strait of Malacca.

proselytize

To convert someone to a faith, belief, or cause.

Bhakti Movement

An immensely popular development in Hinduism, advocating intense devotion toward a particular deity.

Urdu

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

Mississippian Culture

Last of the mound-building cultures of North America; flourished between 800 and 1300 C.E.; featured large towns and ceremonial centers; lacked stone architecture of Central America.

Matrilineal Society

A society in which descent & inheritance come through the mother's kinship line.

Cahokia

An ancient settlement of southern Indians, located near present day St. Louis, it served as a trading center for 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.

Mound Builders

Native american civilizations of the eastern region of north america that created distinctive earthen works that served as elaborate burial places.

city-states

A city that with its surrounding territory forms an independent state.

Mexica

The name given to themselves by the Aztec people.

Theocracy

A government controlled by religious leaders.

human sacrifice

A person who is killed as part of a religious ritual.

Pachacuti

Ruler of Inca society from 1438 to 1471; launched a series of military campaigns that gave Incas control of the region from Cuzco to the shores of Lake Titicaca.

Mita System

The system recruiting workers for particularly difficult and dangerous chores that free laborers would not accept.

Carpa Nan

During Incan rule, this is a massive roadway system made possible by captive labor, stretched 25,00 miles.

Temple of the Sun

Inca religious center located at Cuzco; center of state religion; held mummies of past Incas.

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Kin-based networks

Relation between two or more people that is based on common ancestry or marriage.

Swahili

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

Zanj Rebellion

A series of revolts by slaves working on sugar plantations in Mesopotamia, led by Ali bin Muhammad.

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.

Indian Ocean Trade

World's richest maritime trading network that was essential for the prosperity of East Africa.

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

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

chief

Leader.

Ghana

First known kingdom in sub-Saharan West Africa between the sixth and thirteenth centuries C.E. Also the modern West African country once known as the Gold Coast. Gold and salt trade.

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.

Zimbabwe

A country of southern Africa. Various Bantu peoples migrated into the area during the first millennium, displacing the earlier San inhabitants.

Ethiopia

A Christian kingdom that developed in the highlands of eastern Africa under the dynasty of King Lalaibela; retained Christianity in the face of Muslim expansion elsewhere in Africa.

Magna Carta

The royal charter of political rights given to rebellious English barons by King John in 1215.

English Parliament

Firmly established by the 14th century, gained power at the expense of the king, and was composed of the House of Lords (titled nobility) and the House of Commons (gentry and middle classes).

Manors

Large farm estates of the Middle Ages that were owned by nobles who ruled over the peasants living in the land.

Manorial System

An economic system in the Middle Ages that was built around large estates called manors.

three-field system

A rotational system for agriculture in which one field grows grain, one grows legumes, and one lies fallow. It gradually replaced two-field system in medieval Europe.

Serfs

A person who lived on and farmed a lords land in feudal times.

Primogeniture

Right of inheritance belongs exclusively to the eldest son.

Bourgeoisie

Middle class.

Burghers

Merchant class town dwellers.

Estates

Social classes.

Otto I

10th century ruler who became emperor of the German states through close ties with the Catholic church.

Crusades

A series of holy wars from 1096-1270 AD undertaken by European Christians to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule.

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.

Renaissance

"rebirth"; following the Middle Ages, a movement that centered on the revival of interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome.

Humanism

A Renaissance intellectual movement in which thinkers studied classical texts and focused on human potential and achievements.

Lay Investiture Controversy

A disagreement between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII about who should appoint church officials.

Great Schism

In 1054 this severing of relations divided medieval Christianity into the already distinct Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively.

Antisemitism

Prejudice against Jews.

Little Ice Age

A century-long period of cool climate that began in the 1590s. Its ill effects on agriculture in northern Europe were notable.

Sufism

An Islamic mystical tradition that desired a personal union with God--divine love through intuition rather than through rational deduction and study of the shari'a and belief in a universal principal.