AP Modern World History

legalism

legalism

A school of Chinese philosophy. Prominent during Warring States Period. Had great influence on the policies of the Qin dynasty. Based on a pessimistic view of human nature. Social harmony could only be attained through strong government control and the imposition of strict laws, enforced absolutely.

Tang

Continuing the imperial revival started by the Sui Dynasty this dynasty that followed restored the Chinese imperial impulse four centuries after the decline of the Han, extending control along the silk route. Trade flourished and China finally reached its western limits when its forces were defeated by the imperial armies of the Muslim Abbasid Empire at the Talas River--which stopped future expansion by both empires.

Siddhartha Gautama

The prince who is said to have founded Buddhism.

Caste system

India's traditional social hierarchy.

Samsara

the cycle of life and rebirth in Hinduism

Mahayana

The name of the more mystical and larger of the two main Buddhist sects. This one originated in India in the 400s CE and gradually found its way north to the Silk road and into Central and East Asia.

Empress Wu

the only woman to rule China in her own name, expanded the empire and supported Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty.

Shinto

"Way of the Kami"; Japanese worship of nature spirits

Imperialism

The extension of political rule by one people over other, different peoples. First done by Sargon of Akkad to the Sumerian city states.

Talmud

The collection of Jewish rabbinic discussion pertaining to law, ethics, and tradition consisting of the Mishnah and the Gemara.

Urbanization

the movement of people to Urban areas in search of work.

Tao-te Ching

the central text of Daoism.

Ummah

The collective community of Islamic peoples, which is thought to transcend ethnic and political boundaries.

Yurt

a portable dwelling used by the nomadic people of Centa Asia such as Mongols, consisting of a tentlike structure of skin, felt or hand-woven textiles arranged over wooden poles.

Safavid

The Safavid Empire that ruled Persia (Iran) between 1502-1736.

Syncretism

The unification or blending of opposing people, ideas, or practices, frequently in the realm of religion. For example, when Christianity was adopted by people in a new land, they often incorporate it into their existing culture and traditions.

Sikh

A member of a religious community founded in the Punjab region of India. Developed in the 15th century. They believe in One Immortal Being and the teachings of ten Gurus, starting with Guru Nanak.

Divine Right of Kings

Doctrine that states that the right of ruling comes from God and not people's consent

Glorious Revolution

Following the English Civil War, this event involve the British Parliament once again overthrowing their monarch in 1688-1689. James II was expelled and William and Mary were made king and queen. Marks the point at which Parliament made the monarchy powerless, gave themselves all the power, and wrote a bill of Rights. The whole thing was relatively peaceful and thus glorious.

King Charles I

The English monarch who was beheaded by Puritans (see English Civil War) who then established their own short-lived government ruled by Oliver Cromwell (1650s).

Tennis Court Oath

A pledge signed by all but one of the members of the Third Estate in France. Marks the first time the French formally opposed Louis XVI.

Bourgeoisie

A social class that derives social and economic power from employment, education, and wealth, as opposed to the inherited power of aristocratic family of titled land owners or feudal privileges. It's a term for the middle class common in the 19th century. It's characterized by their ownership of property and their related culture.

John Locke

17th century English philosopher who opposed the Divine Right of Kings and who asserted that people have a natural right to life, liberty, and property.

Shakespeare

A popular English playwright and poet in the 16th century.

95 Theses

It was nailed to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517 and is widely seen as being the catalyst that started the Protestant Reformation. It contained Luther's list of accusations against the Roman Catholic Church.

Indulgence

Within the Catholic Church, this is the remission punishment for ones sins. Such as for a sin that has already been forgiven by God but which still carries with it some kind of punishment. Centuries ago the Church would sell certificates that would get a person out of purgatory. This practice contributed to the Protestant reformation.

Bartholomew Dias

Portuguese navigator that discovered the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Afica.

Cortes

The Spanish conqueror of Mexico.

Enconmienda

A labor system set up by the Spanish government where Spanish colonists could work the native Americans on their land while compensating them and agreeing to educate some of them and teach them about Christianity. The system was meant to curb exploitation but actually made the exploitation of Native Americans worse.

Mita

When colonists were allowed to use Indians for forced labor in colonial South America as a form of taxation. The Inca had previously used a similar practice.

Laissez Faire

The belief that the government shouldn't intervene much in the economy and should instead let the people do what they want with their property. by Adam Smith

Capitalism

Economic system with private and corporate ownership of property and competitive markets. However, since its origins in the 18th and 19th century it was also often correlated to large-scale collusion between governments and private industries such as through establishing royal charters, copyrights and patents, corporate law, and eventually even subsidies of taxpayer money to private industries.

Nation-State

A modern concept of a government that controls an area and represents the people of that area, often idealized as a homogeneous people that share a common language and feeling of nationality.

Leonardo da Vinci

A well known Italian Renaissance artist, architect, musician, mathemetician, engineer, and scientist. Known for the Mona Lisa.

Huguenot

French Protestants who endured severe persecution in the 1600-1700.

Shogun

In feudal Japan, a noble similar to a duke. They were the military commanders and the actual rulers of Japan for many centuries while the Emperor was a powerless spiritual figure.

Samurai

A member of the warrior class in premodern feudal Japan

Aborigine

The general named often used to describe the original inhabitants of Australia.

Janissary

Elite fighting force in the Ottoman army made up of slaves.

Dar al-Islam

A term used by Muslims to refer to those countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, found in East Virginia

Colombian Exchange

The trading of various animals, diseases, and crops between the Eastern and Western hemispheres

Trianglular Trade

From the 16th to 19th centuries, the flow of goods between the Americas, Europe in Africa is often described with what geometric shape?

Colonization

The expansion of countries into other countries where they establish settlements and control the native people and colonists

Creole

Descendants of the Europeans in Latin America, usually implies an upper class status.

Porfirio Diaz

Dictator in Mexico from 1876 to 1911. Overthrown by the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Emiliano Zapata

Revolutionary Leader in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution who originated from the lower classes and was especially appealing to the peasants because he wanted to take land from the haciendas (rich) and return it to them. Ended up assassinated

Young Turks

A coalition starting in the late 1870s of various groups favoring modernist liberal reform of the Ottoman Empire. It was against monarchy of Ottoman Sultan and instead favored a constitution. In 1908 they succeed in establishing a new constitutional era.

Franz Ferdinand

Archduke of Austria-Hungary assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. A major catalyst for WWI.

Lusitania

British passenger ship holding Americans that sunk off the coast of Ireland in 1915 by German U-Boats killing 1,198 people. It was decisive in turning public favor against Germany and bringing America into WWI.

Zimmerman telegram

This was sent by Germans to encourage a Mexican attack against the United States. Intercepted by the US in 1917.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

President of the United States during most of the Depression and most of World War II.

Civilian Conservation Corps

A major public works program in the United States during the Great Depression.

Totalitarianism

Government ruled by a single party and/or person that exerts unlimited control over its citizen's lives.

Sudetenland

Land that Germany thought was rightfully theirs due to the large German speaking population

Proxy war

A war instigated by a major power that does not itself participate

Khmer Empire

Aggressive empire in Cambodia and Laos that collapsed in the 1400's when Thailand conquered Cambodia

Maori

New Zealand indigenous culture established around 800 CE

Pax Mongolica

The period of approximately 150 years of relative peace and stability created by the Mongol Empire.

Henry The Navigator

This Portuguese prince who lead an extensive effort to promote seafaring expertise in the 14th century. Sent many expedition to the coast of West Africa in the 15th century, leading Portugal to discover a route around Africa, ultimately to India.

Afrikaners

South Africans descended from Dutch and French settlers of the seventeenth century. Their Great Trek founded new settler colonies in the nineteenth century. Though a minority among South Africans, they held political power after 1910.

Akbar

Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire in India ( 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of peacemaking with Hindus.

Alexandria

City on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt founded by Alexander. It became the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Ptolemy. It contained the famous Library and the Museum and was a center for leading scientific and literary figures in the classical and postclassical eras.

All-India Muslim League

Political organization founded in India in 1906 to defend the interests of India's Muslim minority. Led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it attempted to negotiate with the Indian National Congress. Demanded the partition of a Muslim Pakistan.

Asante

African kingdom on the Gold Coast that expanded rapidly after 1680. A major participant in the Atlantic economy, trading gold, slaves, and ivory. It resisted British imperial ambitions for a quarter century before being absorbed into Britain.

Atlantic

After 1500, world economic activity gradually began to shift toward this body of water, contributing to the rise of Western European colonialism and economic dominance in the world.

Aztecs

Also known as Mexica, they created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax.

Bartolome de Las Casas

First bishop of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. He devoted most of his life to protecting Amerindian peoples from exploitation. His major achievement was the New Laws of 1542, which limited the ability of Spanish settlers to compel Amerindians to labor.

Beijing

China's northern capital, first used as an imperial capital in 906 and now the capital of the People's Republic of China.

Bartolomeu Dias

Portuguese explorer who in 1488 led the first expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa from the Atlantic and sight the Indian Ocean.

Bengal

Region of northeastern India. It was the first part of India to be conquered by the British in the eighteenth century and remained the political and economic center of British India throughout the nineteenth century. Today this region includes part of Eastern India and all of Bangladesh.

Benjamin Franklin

American intellectual, inventor, and politician He helped to negotiate French support for the American Revolution.

Bhagavad-Gita

The most important work of Indian sacred literature, a dialogue between the great warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna on duty and the fate of the spirit.

Black Death

The common name for a major outbreak of plague that spread across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, carrying off vast numbers of persons.

Bolsheviks

Radical Marxist political party founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1903. They eventually seized power in Russia in 1917.

Caliphate

Islamic empire ruled by those believed to be the successors to the Prophet Muhammad.

Caravel

A small, highly maneuverable three-masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish in the exploration of the Atlantic.

Catholic Reformation

Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church, begun in response to the Protestant Reformation. It clarified Catholic theology and reformed clerical training and discipline.

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.)

Charles Darwin

English naturalist. He studied the plants and animals of South America and the Pacific islands, and in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) set forth his theory of evolution.

Chinampas

Raised fields constructed along lake shores in Mesoamerica to increase agricultural yields.

City state

A small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political form in early Mesopotamia, Archaic and Classical Greece, Phoenicia, and early Italy.

Colonialism

Policy by which a nation administers a foreign territory and develops its resources for the benefit of the colonial power.

Conquistadors

Early-sixteenth-century Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru. (Examples Cortez, Pizarro, Francisco.)

Constitutional Convention

Meeting in 1787 of the elected representatives of the thirteen original states to write the Constitution of the United States.

Constitutionalism

The theory developed in early modern England and spread elsewhere that royal power should be subject to legal and legislative checks.

Cossacks

Peoples of the Russian Empire who lived outside the farming villages, often as herders, mercenaries, or outlaws. Cossacks led the conquest of Siberia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Cottage industry

Weaving, sewing, carving, and other small-scale industries that can be done in the home. The laborers, frequently women, are usually independent. Most manufacturing was done this way before the industrial revolution.

Cotton

The plant that produces fibers from which many textiles are woven. Native to India, it spread throughout Asia and then to the New World. It has been a major cash crop in various places, including early Islamic Iran, Yi Korea, Egypt, and the US

Creoles

In colonial Spanish America, term used to describe someone of European descent born in the New World. Elsewhere in the Americas, the term is used to describe all nonnative peoples.

Crystal Palace

Building erected in London, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Made of iron and glass, like a gigantic greenhouse, it was a symbol of the industrial age.

Cultural imperialism

Domination of one culture over another by a deliberate policy that encourages cultural assimilation of neighboring foreign peoples or by economic or technological superiority.

Cuneiform

A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia.

Dalai Lama

Originally, a title meaning 'universal priest' that the Mongol khans invented and bestowed on a Tibetan lama (priest) in the late 1500s to legitimate their power in Tibet. Subsequently, the title of the religious and political leader of Tibet.

Daoism

Chinese religion that believes the world is always changing and is devoid of absolute morality or meaning. They accept the world as they find it, avoid futile struggles, and deviate as little as possible from 'the way' or 'path' of nature.

Darius I

Third ruler of the Persian Empire (r. 521-486 B.C.E.). He crushed the widespread initial resistance to his rule and gave all major government posts to Persians rather than to Medes.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

Statement of fundamental political rights adopted by the French National Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution.

Deforestation

The removal of trees faster than forests can replace themselves.

Democracy

system of government in which all 'citizens' (however defined) have equal political and legal rights, privileges, and protections, as in the Greek city-state of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. Demographic Transition,A change in the rates of population growth. Before the transition, both birth and death rates are high, resulting in a slowly growing population; then the death rate drops but the birth rate remains high, causing a population explosion. (867)

Driver

A privileged male slave whose job was to ensure that a slave gang did its work on a plantation.