GLST Unit 2 Exam

Brazil Opens Its Ports

Napoleon forced Portugal’s king to flee to Brazil and open its ports to international trade.

U.S. Ships in Brazil

U.S. ships brought coffee from Brazil, which was increasingly produced using enslaved labor.

Brazilian Slavery & Coffee

Brazil needed more enslaved people to work expanding coffee plantations as global demand increased.

U.S. Role in Brazil’s Slave Trade

By 1850, about half of Brazil’s enslaved imports arrived on U.S.-flagged ships.

Coffee and Slavery

Enslaved labor made Brazilian coffee cheap and highly profitable, helping it become popular in America.

Origin of Sugarcane

Sugarcane was first domesticated in India.

Spread of Sugar

European expansion brought sugarcane to Atlantic islands and eventually to the Americas.

Sugar as a Global Crop

Sugar combined Asian sugarcane, European capital, African labor, and American land.

São Tomé

Portuguese plantations used enslaved Africans to produce sugar on the island of São Tomé.

Brazilian Sugar Production

Portugal expanded large-scale sugar production to Brazil.

Haiti’s Sugar Economy

Haiti became wealthy through large-scale sugar production based on enslaved labor.

Sugar Plantations as Factories

Sugar plantations operated like early factories with specialization, strict schedules, and expensive equipment.

Atlantic Slave Trade

More than 12 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic between 1500 and 1880.

Eric Williams

Historian who argued that profits from sugar and slavery helped finance Europe’s Industrial Revolution.

Contradiction in Haiti

France promoted ideas of liberty while continuing to maintain slavery in Haiti.

Haitian Revolution

A revolution from 1791–1804 in which enslaved Haitians fought for freedom and independence.

Black Jacobins

Enslaved Haitians who fought against slavery and for freedom and independence.

Haiti After the Revolution

Former slaves gained independence, divided plantations, and became independent peasants.

Rejection of Plantation Labor

Freed Haitians refused to return to the plantation system after gaining freedom.

Haiti’s Sugar Production After Revolution

Former slaves largely stopped growing sugar and divided large plantations into smaller farms.

Currency

Legal tender authorized by a political entity, such as a government or central bank.

Money

Something with use and exchange value that can serve as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value.

Liquidity

How easily something can be spent or converted. Cash has high liquidity; a gold bar has low liquidity.

World Systems Theory (WST)

The theory referenced in the notes to examine world economies and their development.

Economic Specialization

The development of specialized roles and activities that allow people to focus on particular work.

Division of Labor

The organization of work into different tasks or roles.

Command Economy

Listed as a key concept in the notes; no specific definition is provided.

Market Economy

Listed as a key concept in the notes; no specific definition is provided.

Mixed Economy

Listed as a key concept in the notes; no specific definition is provided.

Surplus

Listed as a key concept in the notes and discussed in the context of economic development.

Expansion

The growth of economic and political reach, including trade outposts and colonies.

Trade Diaspora and Colonies

Trade outposts and colonies established to obtain needed materials and support trade.

Distance-Parity Relationship

Listed in the notes in connection with Mesopotamian political-economic relations and trade.

Trade-Diaspora Model

Listed as a key concept associated with trade relationships and expansion.

Resource Competition

Competition over resources, such as agricultural land or materials.

Market Competition

Competition associated with markets and economic activity.

Rivalry

Competition between groups or states, including conflicts over land, military power, and economic dominance.

Factors of Production

Land, Labor, and Capital

Land

The places from which natural resources are taken.

Labor

Everything that goes into production, including physical work and thought.

Capital

Resources and labor organized into a system; the notes associate it with money and stock.

Feudalism

An economic and social system in medieval Western Europe where land was tied to noble birthright, labor was tied to land, and capital was hoarded rather than invested.

Autarkic System

An economic system of complete self-sufficiency and independence that operates without international trade.

Early Trade Capitalism

An economic system that coordinated separate factors of production through private property, mobile labor, and finance.

Economies of Scale

In the Madeira example, machinery made sugarcane refining more efficient.

Monocrop Farming

Growing a single crop, as with sugarcane on Madeira.

Factory Production

Taking a natural resource and exporting it as a finished product.

Speculative Interest and Return on Investment (ROI)

Investors provided capital in expectation of a return.

Intensification of Production

Increasing production through investment in technology to get more from existing land.

Extensification of Production

Increasing production by adding plantation colonies.

Triangle Trade

The movement of exchanged goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Imperialism

Expansion of political and economic power through trade, conquest, and control of territories.

Doctrine of Discovery

The idea that whoever discovers land owns it, excluding Indigenous peoples from recognition of their claims.

Fiction of Empty Land

The idea that Indigenous peoples were doing nothing with land before colonists arrived.

Racial Hierarchy

A system ranking people by race that supported European and white supremacy and unequal rules.

White Man’s Burden

A British imperial idea used to justify expansion.

Core

Industrial centers of imperial powers that produce finished goods, use cheaper resources from peripheries, and are less exploited.

Periphery

Less-developed regions integrated into global capitalism on unequal terms, often dependent on exports and more exploited.

Peripheral Process

Mechanisms that integrate less-developed regions into global capitalism on unequal terms to serve dominant powers.

Legacies of Extraction and Accumulation

The periphery experiences extraction of resources, while the core accumulates economic wealth.

Hierarchy of Economic Power

An imperial legacy involving unequal economic relationships between core and peripheral regions.

Hierarchy of Political Power

An imperial legacy in which core states controlled postwar political institutions and held powerful militaries.

Hierarchy of Identities

An imperial legacy involving forced migrations, diasporas, and racial laws that protected European or white rule.

Nationalism

The idea that nations exist and should have organized political power; encouraged by the belief that people should rule themselves.

Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)

A meeting involving Russia, Austria, and Britain, associated with conservative great powers wanting to preserve the existing order.

Concert System

Associated in the notes with 19th-century European revolution, great powers, and international cooperation.

Springtime of Nations (1848–1849)

A period of European upheaval and nationalist movements; modern policing developed partly because authorities feared revolts.

Ancient Mesopotamia

An early civilization between two rivers where irrigation supported agriculture and organized labor supported large cities and social hierarchy.

Uruk Social Hierarchy

The hierarchy ranged from ruler-priest and higher priestly classes to officials, scribes, craftspeople, merchants, farmers, laborers, and enslaved people or captives.

Uruk Expansion

During 3700–3100 BCE, the need for metals, stones, and timber encouraged colonies and trade outposts.

Akkad

Conquered the divided Sumerians and created the first empire, according to the notes.

Feudal Lord

A powerful landholder who controlled much of the rights and resources under feudalism.

Madeira

Portuguese settlers arrived in 1420; forests were cleared, irrigation introduced, and sugarcane plantations developed using machinery and investment.

Distance Investors

Investors who provided capital for plantation production, seeking a return on investment.

Ecomienda

Listed in the notes in connection with Spanish expansion into Mexico and Peru; no further definition is provided.

Endless accumulation

The structural imperative of modern world-systems where individuals and firms continually reinvest surplus to acquire still greater wealth.

Kondratieff cycle

A recurring macroeconomic rhythm lasting fifty to sixty years, alternating between an expansionary phase driven by quasi-monopolies and a stagnation phase marked by overproduction.

Semiproletarian household

A domestic income-pooling unit that derives less than half of its resources from wages, enabling employers to pay workers below the absolute minimum reproduction costs.

Five forms of household income

In world-systems analysis, the distinct survival streams consisting of wage-income, subsistence work, petty commodity production, rent, and transfer payments.

Unequal exchange

The constant flow of surplus-value from competitive peripheral producers to quasi-monopolistic core producers during market trade.

Universalism

A positive modern norm asserting that general, meritocratic rules apply equally to all persons across firms, states, and schools.

Anti-universalism

The institutional practice of ranking people into subordinate social categories through racism and sexism to justify inferior labor allocation.

Merchant capitalism

An early economic stage where profits were generated through distance and scarcity by trading scarce goods rather than reorganizing industrial production.

Joint-stock company

A business structure that pools continuous capital across multiple ventures, allowing shares to be traded independently of individual expeditions.

Silent monitor

A wooden device used at Robert Owen's New Lanark cotton mills displaying colored sides to indicate the quality of an employee's work from the previous day.

Commercialization of leisure

The emergence of profit-driven recreation and mass spectator events that workers paid to attend during distinct non-work hours.

Financial derivatives

Contracts such as futures and options whose monetary value is tied directly to underlying assets like commodities, stocks, or currencies.

Arbitrage

The practice of exploiting slight, momentary price differences for identical assets across different exchanges to secure quick, low-risk profits.

Casino capitalism

Susan Strange's concept describing a financial environment dominated by high-risk, speculative bets on future price movements rather than productive investment.

Post-WWI credit reversal

The geopolitical transition where New York replaced London as the world's primary creditor nation, funding wartime destruction rather than productive infrastructure.

Planned obsolescence

The manufacturing practice of regularly redesigning models to encourage consumers to replace working goods with newer versions on credit.

Stock pool

A coordinated syndicate of investors who traded shares among themselves to create an impression of market interest and drive up prices before cashing out.

Black Thursday

The market collapse on October 24, 1929, that marked the start of the Wall Street crash as panic selling overwhelmed the New York Stock Exchange.

Tehran Conference

The 1943 meeting where Western Allies and the Soviet Union coordinated simultaneous 1944 offensives, including cross-Channel and southern French landings.

Operation Bagration

The June 1944 Soviet offensive that destroyed German Army Group Centre, inflicting the largest single defeat on Germany in the war.

Battle of the Bulge

The December 1944 German counteroffensive launched in the Ardennes aiming to seize Antwerp and force a separate peace with the Western Allies.

Operation Downfall

The overarching Allied plan for the amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands, divided into Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet.

Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers

The occupation administration led by General Douglas MacArthur that directed post-WWII reforms in Japan through the existing civil bureaucracy.

Kamikaze

Japanese suicide aircraft introduced during the Philippines campaign in 1944 designed to dive directly into Allied warships.