Modern World History: Industrialization, Imperialism, WWI, and Ideological Revolutions

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the First Industrial Revolution, political ideologies (traditionalism, liberalism, democracy, and fascism), European and American imperialism, the causes and course of World War I, the 1917 Russian Revolutions, and the rise of the Weimar Republic and Nazism.

Inclusion and exclusion

The principle that every concept of inclusion is coupled with exclusion, defining who you are connected to and who you are not.

Nationalism

A phenomenon originating in the late 18th to 19th century centered on seeing oneself as part of a nation, characterized by an 'us vs them' worldview.

Imagined community

The feeling of being connected to people far away through a shared language, territory, culture, history, mythology, and customs.

Imperialism

The belief that 'we are a great nation and should expand our empire,' which directly grew out of nationalism.

First Industrial Revolution

An economic transition beginning around 1750 that shifted society from a rural farm economy to cities and factories.

Transportation Revolution

The development of railroads, steamboats, canals, and the telegraph during the 1820s to 1840s, replacing previous reliance on animal or wind power.

Market economy

An economic system in which farmers grew surplus crops to sell for cash rather than engaging in subsistence farming.

Cotton gin

An invention by Eli Whitney enabling the mass harvesting of cotton, which inadvertently revived slavery.

Mechanical reaper

An invention by Cyrus McCormick that enabled the mass harvesting of wheat and pioneered selling machines on credit.

Interchangeable parts

Replaceable, standardized machine parts that fueled the market revolution.

Louis Pasteur

Scientist who developed germ theory, proving that disease does not originate from sin and advocating that surgeons wash their hands.

Traditional society

A social structure characterized by rural life, peasants and nobles, monarchy by divine right, kinship over individualism, and the belief that change is bad.

Liberalism

A challenge to traditional society advocating individualism, natural rights, competition, work ethic, private property, and equality under the law.

John Locke

The father of liberalism, who asserted that people are born with natural rights derived from nature rather than from government.

"The Mob"

The primary fear in liberal thought, defined as unpropertied masses seeking to redistribute wealth.

Age of Empire

A major outburst of European empire building spanning from 1880 to 1914.

Social Darwinism

The application of Charles Darwin's theories to human societies to claim scientific superiority of certain groups, justifying inequality at home and imperialism abroad as 'racism for intellectuals.'

Herbert Spencer

Thinker who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' and claimed that inferior groups are bound by biology.

Spanish-American War

An 1898 conflict referred to as 'a splendid little war,' resulting in the United States acquiring Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, the Guano Islands, and the Philippines.

Guano Islands

Islands harvested for bird droppings termed 'white gold,' which was used as fertilizer.

General Jacob Smith

U.S. general who directed the 1901 Samar campaign and ordered the killing of Filipinos over age 11.

Philippine War

A conflict from January 1899 to July 4, 1902, resulting in the deaths of 4,000 Americans, 16,000 Filipino soldiers, and between 500,000 and 1,000,000 civilians.

"The long fuse"

The collective long-term causes of World War I, consisting of nationalism, imperial rivalry, militarism, internal dissent, alliances, and mobilization plans.

Gavrilo Princip

Serbian nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, seeking a nation for Serbs.

Entente Powers

The World War I alliance composed of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro.

Central Powers

The World War I alliance composed of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey (the Ottomans).

Schlieffen Plan

A German military strategy designed to overrun Belgium and France before turning on Russia, which was thwarted at the Marne.

Battle of Verdun (1916)

A major World War I engagement in 1916 in which each side lost over 300,000 men with no conclusive result.

Battle of the Somme

A World War I battle that produced 500,000 fatalities and resulted in the British gaining only a few square miles.

Spanish flu

A global pandemic that killed $50\text{M}$ people worldwide ($3\%$ of the global population) across every continent.

Committee on Public Information

A U.S. wartime agency established in April 1917 under George Creel that produced 75 million pamphlets, ads, posters, and movies.

Four-Minute Men

A network of speakers deployed by the Committee on Public Information to give 4-minute pro-war speeches and discredit the anti-war movement.

Paris Peace Conference

The 1919 conference termed the most important event of the 20th century, which established post-World War I treaties.

League of Nations

An international organization conceived by Woodrow Wilson that proved weak in practice, which the U.S. Senate refused to join.

Middle East mandates

Former Ottoman lands divided by Britain and France that operated functionally as colonies, including the creation of Syria without consent.

Duma (1905)

The Russian parliament established after the Russo-Japanese War, comprised of loyal and wealthy men that brought no real systemic change.

February 1917

A period during Russia's coldest winter marked by strikes and mutinies under the slogan 'Bread, Peace, Land,' culminating in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

Provisional Government

The liberal, middle-class government established in Russia in 1917 that kept fighting World War I and became as unpopular as the Tsar.

Soviets

Councils of soldiers and workers in 1917 Russia that served as rival power centers to the Provisional Government.

Lenin

Vladimir Ulyanov; a middle-class Marxist interpreter exiled in 1900 who returned in April 1917 and championed a top-down revolution to skip capitalism.

October 1917

The revolution in which Vladimir Lenin's soldiers seized Petrograd, purged moderates, and established the first Marxist state.

Weimar Republic

The German liberal democracy characterized by free expression, described as a 'candle burning at both ends,' and tainted by the Versailles Treaty.

Stab-in-the-back myth

A post-WWI German belief asserting that Germany was a great nation that had not been defeated militarily, but rather betrayed by people at home.

Fascism

A fourth political ideology beyond traditional, liberal, and democratic models that emphasizes struggle, action, and protest, prioritizing meaning and redemption over rationality.

Beer Hall Putsch (1923)

A failed coup attempt by Adolf Hitler in 1923 that resulted in his imprisonment.

Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler's 1924 book written while in prison, articulating blunt racism and anti-Semitism.