WHAP MODERN ERA VOCAB

John Locke

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.

Social Contract

A voluntary agreement among individuals to secure their rights and welfare by creating a government and abiding by its rules.

Baron Montesquieu

Enlightenment thinker who supported the idea of separation of powers

Jean-Jacque Rousseau

A French man who believed that Human beings are naturally good & free & can rely on their instincts. Government should exist to protect common good, and be a democracy

Enlightenment

A movement in the 18th century that advocated the use of reason in the reappraisal of accepted ideas and social institutions.

Liberalism

A belief that government can and should achieve justice and equality of opportunity.

Conservativism

A political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes.

Empiricism

the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation

Nationalism

A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's country

Feminism

A female movement for gender equality.

Abolitionism

Movement to end slavery

Anti-Semitism

Prejudice against Jews

Adam Smith

Scottish economist who wrote the Wealth of Nations a precursor to modern Capitalism.

Laissez-Faire

Idea that government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital

Socialism

A system in which society, usually in the form of the government, owns and controls the means of production.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

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

Reign of Terror

(1793-94) during the French Revolution when thousands were executed for "disloyalty"

Haitian Revolution

The only fully successful slave rebellion in world history; the uprising in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (later named Haiti) was sparked by the French Revolution and led to the establishment of an independent state after a long and bloody war (1791-1804)

Toussaint L'Overture

Instrumental leader throughout the Haitian Revolution. He led the blacks to a victory over the whites, freeing the slaves.

Simon Bolivar

1783-1830, Venezuelan statesman: leader of revolt of South American colonies against Spanish rule.

Jose de San Martin

Leader of independence movement in Rio de la Plata; led to independence of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata by 1816; later led independence movement in Chile and Peru as well.

Realpolitik

realistic politics based on the needs of the state

Otto von Bismarck

Chancellor of Prussia from 1862 until 1871, when he became chancellor of Germany. A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870) and was responsible for the creation of the German Empire

Mestizo

A person of mixed Native American and European ancestry

Peninsulares

Spanish-born, came to Latin America; ruled, highest social class.

Mulattoes

People of African and European descent

Bastille

Medieval fortress that was converted to a prison stormed by peasants for ammunition during the early stages of the French Revolution.

Spinning Jenny

A machine that could spin several threads at once

Water frame

1780's; Richard Arkwright; powered by water; turned out yarn much faster than cottage spinning wheels, led to development of mechanized looms

Factory system

A method of production that brought many workers and machines together into one building

Crop rotation

The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.

Cottage Industry

Manufacturing based in homes rather than in a factory, commonly found before the Industrial Revolution.

Eli Whitney

Invented the cotton gin

Interchangeable parts

Identical components that can be used in place of one another in manufacturing

Specialization of Labor

Focusing work effort on a product or a single task

Enclosure Movement

The process of consolidating small landholdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.

Capital

refers to manufactured goods used to make other goods and services

Raw Materials

the basic material from which a product is made.

Trans-Siberian Railroad

Constructed in 1870s to connect European Russia with the Pacific; completed by the end of the 1880s; brought Russia into a more active Asian role.

Steam engine

A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion. Thomas Newcomen built the first crude but workable one in 1712. James Watt vastly improved his device in the 1760s and 1770s. It was then applied to machinery.

James Watt

Scottish engineer and inventor whose improvements in the steam engine led to its wide use in industry (1736-1819).

Muhamad Ali

Leader of Egyptian modernization in the early nineteenth century. He ruled Egypt as an Ottoman governor but had imperial ambitions. His descendants ruled Egypt until overthrown in 1952.

Matthew Perry

A navy commander who, on July 8, 1853, became the first foreigner to break through the barriers that had kept Japan isolated from the rest of the world for 250 years.

Zaibatsu

Large conglomerate corporations through which key elite families exerted a great deal of political and economic power in Imperial Japan. By WWII, four of them controlled most of the economy of Japan.

Meiji Restoration

The political program that followed the destruction of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, in which a collection of young leaders set Japan on the path of centralization, industrialization, and imperialism.

Corporations

businesses that are owned by many investors who buy shares of stock

Stockholders

people or entities that own stock in a corporation and therefore are its owners

Stock Market

A system for buying and selling shares of companies

Monopoly

A market in which there are many buyers but only one seller.

Cecil Rhodes

Born in 1853, played a major political and economic role in colonial South Africa. He was a financier, statesman, and empire builder with a philosophy of mystical imperialism.

Consumerism

a movement advocating greater protection of the interests of consumers

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban settlements.

Bessemer Process

A way to manufacture steel quickly and cheaply by blasting hot air through melted iron to quickly remove impurities.

Karl Marx

1818-1883. 19th century philosopher, political economist, sociologist, humanist, political theorist, and revolutionary. Often recognized as the father of communism. Analysis of history led to his belief that communism would replace capitalism as it replaced feudalism. Believed in a classless society.

Communist Manifesto

A socialist manifesto written by Marx and Engels (1848) describing the history of the working-class movement according to their views.

Communism

A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

Utilitarianism

idea that the goal of society should be to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

60.

Labor Unions An organization formed by workers to strive for better wages and working conditions

Bourgeoise

The middle class, including merchants, industrialists and professional people

Bushido

The Feudal Japanese code of honor among the warrior class.

Mahmud II

Ottoman sultan; built a private, professional army; fomented revolution of Janissaries and crushed them with private army; destroyed power of Janissaries and their religious allies; initiated reform of Ottoman Empire on Western precedents

Tanzimat

'Restructuring' reforms by the nineteenth-century Ottoman rulers, intended to move civil law away from the control of religious elites and make the military and the bureaucracy more efficient.

Millets

Areas of town where individual religious groups could live and practice their religions.

Self-Strengthening Movement

late 19th century movement in China to counter the challenge from the West; led by provincial leaders

Empress Cixi

Conservative dowager empress who encouraged and promoted the Boxer rebellion

Imperialism

A policy in which a strong nation seeks to dominate other countries politically, socially, and economically.

Sino-Japanese War

(1894-1895) Japan's imperialistic war against China to gain control of natural resources and markets for their goods. It ended with the Treaty of Portsmouth which granted Japan Chinese port city trading rights, control of Manchuria, the annexation of the island of Sakhalin, and Korea became its protectorate.

Social Darwinism

The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies - particularly as a justification for their imperialist expansion.

British/Dutch East India Company

Private trading companies chartered by the governments of England and the Netherlands around 1600; they were given monopolies on Indian Ocean trade, including the right to make war and to rule conquered peoples.

King Leopold II

King of Belgium (r. 1865-1909). He was active in encouraging the exploration of Central Africa and became the infamous ruler of the Congo Free State (to 1908).

Berlin Conference

A meeting from 1884-1885 at which representatives of European nations agreed on rules colonization of Africa

Scramble for Africa

Sudden wave of conquests in Africa by European powers in the 1880s and 1890s. Britain obtained most of eastern Africa, France most of northwestern Africa. Other countries (Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Spain) acquired lesser amounts.

Monroe Doctrine

an American foreign policy opposing interference in the Western hemisphere from outside powers

Manifest Destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

Penal Colony

a colony to which convicts are sent as an alternative to prison

Boer War

Lasting from 1899 to 1902, Dutch colonists and the British competed for control of territory in South Africa.

Seven Years' War

(1756-1763 CE) Known also as the French and Indian war. It was the war between the French and their Indian allies and the English that proved the English to be the more dominant force of what was to be the United States both commercially and in terms of controlled regions.

Taiping Rebellion

(1850-1864) A revolt by the people of China against the ruling Manchu Dynasty because of their failure to deal effectively with the opium problem and the interference of foreigners.

Boxer Rebellion

1899 rebellion in Beijing, China started by a secret society of Chinese who opposed the "foreign devils". The rebellion was ended by British troops

Spanish-American War

In 1898, a conflict between the United States and Spain, in which the U.S. supported the Cubans' fight for independence

Corvee labor

unpaid forced labor usually by lower classes, forced upon them by the government

Spheres of Influence

An area in which an outside power claims exclusive investment or trading privileges

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.

Settler colony

Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism which seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers. As with all forms of colonialism, it is based on exogenous domination, typically organized or supported by an imperial authority.

Suez Canal

A human-made waterway, which was opened in 1869, connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea

Tupac Amaru II

Member of Inca aristocracy who led a rebellion against Spanish authorities in Peru in 1780-1781. He was captured and executed with his wife and other members of his family.

Muhammad Ahmad

Head of Sudanic Sufi brotherhood; claimed descent from prophet Muhammad; proclaimed both Egyptians and British infidels; launched revolt to purge Islam of impurities; took Khartoum in 1883.

Asante Empire

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

Zulu

A monarchy in Southern Africa that extended along the coast of the Indian Ocean from the Tugela River in the south to Pongola River in the north.

Pan-Africanism

the unity of all black Africans, regardless of national boundaries

Sepoys

Indian troops who served in the British army

Raj

British rule after India came under the British crown during the reign of Queen Victoria

Guano

Bat and seabird droppings used as fertilizer; a major trade item of Peru in the late nineteenth century

De Beers Mining Company

Owned by British Cecil Rhodes, this company controlled up to 90% of the world's diamond production.

Monocultures

lack of agricultural diversity

Apartheid

Laws in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.

Treaty of Nanking

Treaty that concluded the Opium War. It awarded Britain a large indemnity from the Qing Empire, denied the Qing government tariff control over some of its own borders, opened additional ports of residence to Britons, and ceded Hong Kong to Britain.

Opium Wars

1839-1842. Chinese attempted to prohibit the opium trade, British declared war and won against Chinese.