EXAM 1 Prompts

2-3 Sentences

Class structure

Feudal class structures before the Industrial Revolution had people like monarchs and landowners at the top. After industrialization, the rise of the middle and working class included people like skilled factory workers, factory owners, and professionals. The evolution of class structures from the 18th-19th centuries gave us a modern world where more people have access to education and wealth is more evenly distributed relative to feudal times.

Nationalism

Beginning in the late 1800s, nationalism was getting adopted in almost all of the empires because groups of people felt a sense of collective identity with some people, wanted to govern themselves how they saw fit, and wanted to be separate from others that they believed didn’t belong with them. Nationalism was a strong tool for uniting citizens who believed they shared a common political destiny and caused people to kill and die for their groups. This led to a modern world where intense patriotism exists and people are both united with their own people and discriminatory against others.

Concert of Europe

The Concert of Europe (1815-1856) was a system that was established by the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars which came from the French Empire, but were protesting French Rule. Powers such as Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria were involved, trying to agree on rules of diplomacy in hopes to prevent future conflict by maintaining conservative order. Although it wasn’t fully effective, it sparked ideas for future allied organizations such as the United Nations today which shares goals of maintaining world peace.

Revolutions of 1848

1848 was a year that saw various revolutions in Europe including the French, Hungarian, Czech, Italian, German, etc. Although not all of them were successful, they all led to social and political reforms as well as fostered nationalism in those states. The spark of this year of revolutions affected many modern day nations including today’s nations of France, Germany, Italy, and more. Now, people are more united if they feel they belong to the same nation and work to uphold their nation’s values in terms of how they believe politics and economics should be run.

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism was a pseudoscience adopted by imperialist and colonialist countries in the late 1800s based on the misinterpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection. These ideas viewed states and societies as organisms that were engaged in political war in order to survive. Those that couldn’t win wars or project their powers abroad did not deserve to be protected. Social Darwinism fostered support for laissez faire capitalism and was often used to validate racism in less modernized countries. Today, the effects are present in deep rooted prejudice we have towards groups of people as well as economically where countries that were colonized are less developed and have less power in today’s politics.

Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference (1884-1885) was when European leaders agreed to develop formal rules for controlling African territories, without consulting any actual African people. They established the concept of “effective occupation” where they can only have control over African colonies if they were there to promote Christianity and commerce, and bring civilization to Africa. However, this led to Africa being divided using arbitrary borders, separating religious and ethnic groups which only contributed to the instability of those colonies. Africans were oppressed and exploited by European colonists and we see these effects today where African countries aren’t as developed, seen, or recognized in international politics. 

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) had Manchurian rulers and was the last to rule China, ending 2000 years of dynastic rule. The Qing Dynasty saw a lot of civil tension rising due to internal conflicts as well as losing international affairs such as the Opium Wars and losing countries to Japan. Overthrown in 1911 by political revolutionaries of the Xinhai Revolution, the nationalist KMT party founded the Republic of China until it was overthrown again by Chinese communists in 1949 which founded the People’s Republic of China which we see today participating in international affairs. 

Matthew Perry

Commodore Matthew Perry was an American naval officer most known for his arrival at Japan in 1853 during the decline of Tokugawa Rule. Although there were already domestic issues, Perry’s use of gunboat diplomacy to get Japan to open up to trade led to the Meiji Restoration and treaties that included Japan in the international network of trade and amity. This relationship led the way for Japan to rapidly modernize and be included in the group of world powers with the West. This allowed Japan to be able to compete alongside world powers in the 1900s in the world wars as well as allowed Japan to have such a recognized status in international politics today. 

Meiji Restoration

The Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) was responsible for modernizing Japan as a nation after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogun. During the military dictatorship, Japan was rural, feudal, had a weak military, and was closed off from trade. The restoration restored power to the emperor and united Japan under a centralized government where they industrialized more, strengthened their military, and got Japan ready for the two World Wars they will be a part of as well as get them to a point today where they still hold power in international politics. 

Sino-Japanese War

The Sino-Japanese War took place in two stages: 1895, and 1937-1945. In the first war, China lost Taiwan and influence over Korea to Japan. After China’s 1911 Revolution, the second war was primarily between China’s Nationalist Party and Japan while Chinese communists grew in strength by avoiding the japanese. By 1945, Japan had to withdraw because of the US bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki which led to China regaining all territories lost. However, this war had weakened the Chinese Nationalist Party which allowed the Chinese communists to win the civil war and form the People’s Republic of China in 1949 which affects Chinese international relations today.

Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) was an anti-christian and anti-imperialist movement in North China that was one of the factors that led to the Nationalist Revolution of 1911. These Boxers were initially anti-Qing but later joined forces with the Qing against foreigners. At their peak, they surrounded foreign embassy offices in China in an attempt to pressure them out of China but this had the opposite effect: uniting 8 of the most powerful nations in the world at that moment against the Qing and the Boxers. The foreign powers won in the end with their troops stationed in Beijing forcing the Qing to pay restitutions. The increasing humiliation the Qing and China felt ultimately led to the 1911 Revolution that saw political and then eventually social reforms in China, resulting in the China we see today partaking in international politics.

Sun Yat-Sen

Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925) was credited as the hero of the 1911 Chinese Nationalist Revolution, overthrowing the Qing Dynasty after two failed attempts. When he returned to China from raising funds abroad, he was elected provisional President of Republic of China (ROC). However, he was forced to resign by Yuan Shikai to avoid splitting the country. Chiang Kai Shek became leader of KMT after Sun died but was never able to unite the country. Yat-Sen’s ROC was later won over by Mao Zedong’s PRC communist group in 1949 which is the China we see participating in politics today, but Yat-Sen is still respected today in both mainland China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC) for his politically revolutionary efforts against the last Chinese dynasty. 

Tokugawa Shogunate

The Tokugawa Shogunate was a military dictatorship during the Edo Period in Japan where there was an emperor but he was powerless. 15 shoguns successively ruled today’s Tokyo from the 1600s to 1867. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was mostly agricultural/rural, had not industrialized much, had a weak military, and a feudal system. This was all changed when the Meiji Restoration modernized Japan, uniting it under a central government. Today, Japan still has an emperor along with a prime minister and the whole country has power in today’s politics because of reformations following the Tokugawa Shogunate. 

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War fought between Russia and Japan from 1904-1905 was a conflict about borders in the places between the nations. They mainly fought over Manchuria and Korea, which resulted in a clear temporary victory for Japan, making it the first Asian nation to really defeat a European power. Among other things, this war led to Russian internal conflict, the Russian Revolution and conflict between the Soviet Union and Japan in WWII where Japan lost Manchuria and Korea. The effects of these conflicts are still seen today in the strained relationship between Japan and Russia. 

Emiliano Zapata

During the Mexican Revolution, Zapata was the leader of indigenous peasants and with them formed the Liberation Army of the South, also known as the Zapatistas. Along with Pancho Villa, Zapata accused Madero of not fulfilling promises of the revolution and pushed for more social changes. Although Zapata didn’t witness social reforms in his lifetime, his movements kept Mexican peasants fighting until they finally got the land distribution they wanted with Lazaro Cardenas, the True Radical in 1934. There are still Zapatistas today in Southern Mexico, which shows the lasting impact he left on the poor, indigenous, working class of Mexico.

Lazaro Cardenas

Lazaro Cardenas was known as the True Radical for his actions in office as president of Mexico starting in 1934. Wanting to further the Mexican Revolution from some decades ago with a focus on the social reforms, Cardenas redistributed 44 million acres of land back to native people and took back foreign owned oil holdings which he nationalized into PEMEX, a Mexican gas company that still exists today. With his socialist ideas, Cardenas was also affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), known as the Party of the Mexican Revolution in 1938. His land reforms and political involvement helped the PRI keep power up until 2000, which helped form the Mexico we have today in the 21st century.