AP World History: Modern Review Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering AP World History units 1 through 9, including key terms, people, and systems from c. 1200 to the present.

Song Dynasty

A Chinese dynasty ($960$-$1279$) characterized by great wealth, political stability, and intellectual innovations, which developed the world's greatest manufacturing capability.

Meritocracy

A system in which China's bureaucracy expanded by allowing for greater social mobility based on merit rather than purely on birth.

Grand Canal

An efficient waterway transportation system that enabled China to become the most populous trading area in the world.

Gunpowder

Technology and guns that spread from China to all parts of Eurasia via traders on the Silk Roads.

Tributes

An arrangement to gain income in which other states had to pay money or provide goods to honor the Chinese emperor.

Foot binding

A social constraint practiced in China where it was expected that women would defer to men.

Neo-Confucianism

A syncretic system evolving between $770$ and $840$ that combined rational thought with the abstract ideas of Daoism and Buddhism.

Daimyo

Landowning aristocrats in Japan who battled for control of the land.

Shogun

A military ruler installed by the Minamoto in $1192$ to reign over Japan.

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

An Islamic scholar who laid the groundwork for making trigonometry a separate subject.

‘A’ishah al-Ba’uniyyah

A prolific female Muslim writer before the $20\text{th}$ century whose works described her journey toward mystical illumination.

House of Wisdom

A renowned center of learning located in Abbasid Baghdad.

Delhi Sultanate

An Islamic government that reigned in northern India for $300$ years from the $13\text{th}$ through the $16\text{th}$ centuries.

Bhakti Movement

A $12\text{th}$-century Hindu movement emphasizing emotion and strong attachment to a particular deity rather than rituals or texts.

Srivijaya Empire

A Hindu sea-based kingdom ($670$-$1025$) based on Sumatra that prospered by charging fees for ships traveling between India and China.

Majapahit Kingdom

A Buddhist sea-based kingdom ($1293$-$1520$) based on Java that held power by controlling sea routes.

Khmer Empire

A land-based kingdom ($802$-$1431$) situated near the Mekong River known for complex irrigation and drainage systems.

City-state

The main source of Mayan government, each ruled by a king and consisting of a city and its surrounding territory.

Theocracy

A government in which religious leaders have the power, such as the Aztec government.

Mit’a system

A mandatory public service system used by the Incan Empire instead of a tributary system.

Bantu-speaking people

Groups whose outward migrations from west-central Africa heavily formed the development of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Griots

Storytellers in Sub-Saharan Africa who served as the conduits of history for a community.

Manorial system

An economic system in Europe providing self-sufficiency and defense, where the manor produced everything inhabitants required.

Great Schism

The $1054$ split of the Christian Church into two branches: Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Bourgeoisie

A growing middle class in Europe including shopkeepers, craftspeople, merchants, and small landholders.

Humanism

A Renaissance intellectual movement focusing on individuals rather than God, seeking education and reform.

Flying cash

A credit system developed by the Chinese government to manage trade when copper coins became too unwieldy.

Genghis Khan

The leader who conquered the Central Asian Kara Khitai and Islamic Khwarazm Empires, reaching from the North China Sea to eastern Persia by $1227$.

Golden Horde

Batu's Mongolian army of $100,000$ soldiers that conquered Russian kingdoms and forced them to pay tribute.

Diasporic Communities

Settlements formed by merchants who stayed in regions while waiting for favorable winds, interacting with surrounding cultures.

Gunpowder Empires

Large multiethnic states such as the Russian, Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires that relied on firearms for conquest.

Divine right of kings

The claim that the right to rule was given to a king by God, common in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Justices of the peace

Officials selected by the landed gentry in Tudor England to maintain peace in the counties.

Boyars

The noble landowning class at the top of the social pyramid in the Russian Empire.

Indulgences

Church documents that granted a person absolution from the punishments for sin, which Martin Luther opposed.

Empiricism

A scientific method developed by Francis Bacon in $1620$ that insisted on the collection of data to back up a hypothesis.

Mercantilism

An economic system used by European powers to increase government control through high tariffs and the establishment of colonies.

Encomienda

A Spanish labor system where landowners compelled indigenous people to work in exchange for food and shelter.

Commercial Revolution

The transformation to a trade-based economy using gold and silver starting in the $16\text{th}$ century.

Joint-stock company

A business organization where individuals buy shares, such as the Dutch East India Company.

Maroon wars

Internal challenges to the British Empire involving rebellions in its colonies.

Atlantic System

A transoceanic trading network involving the movement of goods and people between Western Europe, Western Africa, and the Americas.

Knowledge economy

A late $20\text{th}$-century economy driven by revolutions in information and communications technology.

Economic liberalization

The opening up of a country's economy through relaxed restrictions on trade.

The Enlightenment

An intellectual movement in Europe from the $17\text{th}$ to $19\text{th}$ centuries that dominated the world of ideas.

Zionism

The desire of Jews to reestablish an independent homeland in the Middle East.

Realpolitik

A system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations, used by Otto von Bismarck.

Interchangeable parts

A system created by Eli Whitney in $1798$ for manufacturing firearms that led to the division of labor.

Meiji Restoration

The period in Japan starting in $1868$ that abolished feudalism and subsidized rapid industrialization and modernization.

Social Darwinism

The adaptation of Darwin's theory of biological evolution to society, arguing for the inherent superiority of white colonial powers.

Berlin Conference

A meeting hosted by Otto von Bismarck where Europeans established artificial colonial borders in Africa.

Ghost Dance

A Native American resistance movement that culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre in $1890$.

Guano

Bat and seabird excrement rich in nitrates and phosphates used as an excellent natural fertilizer.

Corvée labor

Compulsory unpaid work, such as that forced upon farmers in the Dutch East Indies.

Ethnic enclaves

Neighborhoods formed by people from the same foreign country, such as Chinese neighborhoods in the U.S.

Bolsheviks

An organization representing the revolutionary working class in Russia that seized power in $1917$ under Vladimir Lenin.

Total war

A strategy committing a nation’s entire domestic population and its military to winning a war.

Propaganda

Communication meant to influence attitudes by spreading inaccurate or slanted information.

Five-Year Plan

Joseph Stalin's industrial policy meant to transform the USSR into a global industrial power.

Blitzkrieg

A 'lightning war' strategy used by Hitler to quickly subdue Poland and other European nations.

Lend-Lease Act

A $1941$ U.S. law allowing the lending of war materials to Britain, effectively ending American neutrality.

Marshall Plan

A U.S. program providing financial aid to help reconstruct Europe after World War II.

Great Leap Forward

A $1958$ Chinese policy that organized peasant lands into large agricultural communes.

Communes

Large agricultural communities in China where the state, not private owners, held the land.

Suez Crisis

The conflict starting in $1956$ when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, leads to intervention by Israel, Britain, and France.

Apartheid

A codified system of racial segregation in South Africa instituted in $1948$ and ended in the early $1990\text{s}$.

Green Revolution

A mid-$20\text{th}$-century response to hunger involving new varieties of grains and genetic engineering.

Penicillin

The first antibiotic, discovered by Alexander Fleming in $1928$, which cured bacterial infections.

Brexit

The nickname for the $2016$ vote by $52\%$ of British voters to leave the European Union.