AP World History Review: Units 1-5

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key concepts from the 1200-1900 time period, including trade networks, land-based and maritime empires, the Columbian Exchange, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution.

Manorial system

The large organizing political and social order of Europe characterized by lords who hired knights for protection and a peasantry tied to the land to provide produce.

Three-field system

An agricultural innovation where crops were rotated through three different fields—two planted and one remaining fallow—to increase food production.

Silk Roads

A network of trading routes mainly used for luxury goods destined for elite markets, most prominently silk from China.

Caravan Surai

A series of inns and guest houses spaced about a day's travel apart along the Silk Roads to provide safety and supplies for merchants.

Paper money

A commercial technology first developed in China that facilitated trade by being lighter and easier to transport than silver or gold.

Indian Ocean Network

The world’s most significant sea-based trade network until roughly 1500, driven by the desire for goods like Chinese porcelain, Indian cotton, and spices.

Latine sails

Triangular sails used in the Indian Ocean trade that allowed ships to cut against the wind.

Astrolabe

A navigational tool that calculated how far north or south a ship was from the Equator.

Swahili city-states

Strategic coastal states that acted as brokers for goods like gold, ivory, and enslaved people between the African interior and Indian Ocean buyers.

Trans-Saharan network

A trade system connecting North Africa and the Mediterranean with the interior of West Africa, facilitated by the introduction of the Arabian camel.

Syncretism

The blending of different belief systems or worldviews, such as Chan Buddhism (Buddhism and Taoism) or Sikhism (Hindu and Islamic doctrines).

Bubonic plague

Also known as the Black Death, a deadly disease that spread along trade routes due to increasing global connectivity.

Mongol Empire

The largest land-based empire in history, which encouraged international trade and communication across Eurasia.

Gunpowder empires

States such as the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires that used gunpowder weapons to expand and consolidate their power.

Janissaries

An elite group of Ottoman soldiers made up of enslaved Christians who were converted to Islam and trained in gunpowder weapons.

Zamindars

Elite landowners in the Mughal Empire who were granted authority to tax peasants on behalf of the imperial government.

Divine right

A religious claim used by European kings, such as Louis XIV, asserting that they were God's representatives on earth to legitimize their rule.

Protestant Reformation

A 16th-century movement begun by Martin Luther's 95 theses that resulted in a major split within the Christian church between Catholics and Protestants.

Caravelle

A small, fast, and nimble Portuguese ship design using a combination of square and Latine sails, built to carry cargo for maritime trade.

Mercantilism

An economic policy based on the belief in a finite amount of global wealth, emphasizing a favorable balance of trade (more exports than imports).

Trading post empire

A type of empire established by the Portuguese consisting of small but strategically located posts meant to influence trade rather than conquer large territories.

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of animals, plants, foods, and diseases between Europe and the Americas following transoceanic contact.

Encomienda system

A coercive labor system in which the Spanish compelled indigenous people to work on their plantations.

Casta system

A new social hierarchy in the Americas imposed by the Spanish that organized society based on ancestry and race.

Enlightenment

A European movement that shifted authority from traditional beliefs to empirical data and individual reason, emphasizing natural rights and the social contract.

Seneca Falls Convention

An 1848 gathering in the United States calling for equal rights for women, specifically focusing on women's suffrage.

Industrial Revolution

A fundamental change in manufacturing characterized by the move from handmade goods to machine and mass production, beginning in Great Britain.

Meiji Restoration

A period of defensive industrialization in Japan aimed at modernizing the state to protect domestic cultural institutions from Western takeover.

Laissez-faire

The free-market principle that governments should remove themselves from economic influence, letting supply and demand dictate the market.

Tanzimat reforms

Attempts by the Ottoman Empire to eliminate corruption and industrialize in response to the encroaching power of the Western world.