AP World History Chapter 2 Key Terms

Song Dynasty

The Chinese dynasty (960-1279) that rose to power after the Tang dynasty. During the Song dynasty, an explosion of scholarship gave rise to Neo-Confucianism, and a revolution in agricultural and industrial production made China the richest and most populated country on the planet.

China's Economic revolution

a major rise in prosperity that took place in China under the song dynasty (960-1279), which was marked by rapid population growth, urbanization, economic specialization, the development of an immense network of internal waterways, and a great increase in industrial production and technological innovation.

Hangzhou

the capital of China during the Song Dynasty, with a population of more than a million people at its height.

Foot Binding

The Chinese practice of tightly wrapping girls' feet to keep them small, prevalent in the song dynasty and later an emphasis on small size and delicacy was central to female

Hangul

phonetic alphabet developed in Korea in the 15th century in a move toward greater cultural independence from China.

chu nom

a variation of Chinese writing developed in Vietnam that became the basis for an independent national literature

Bushido

The "way of the warrior," referring to the martial values of the Japanese samurai, including bravery, loyalty, and an emphasis on death over surrender.

Abbasid Caliphate

An Arab dynasty of caliphs (successors to the Prophet) who governed much of the Islamic world from its capital in Baghdad beginning in 750 CE. After 900 CE that empire increasingly fragmented until its overthrow by the Mongols in 1258.

Seljuk Turkic Empire

An empire of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, centered in Persia and present day Iraq. Seljuk rulers adopted the Muslim title of sultan (ruler) as art of their conversion to Islam.

Ottoman Empire

Major Islamic state centered on Anatolia that came to include the Balkans, parts of the Middle East, and much of North Africa; lasted in one form or another from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century.

Al-Andalus

Arabic name for Spain, most of which was conquered by Arab and Berber forces between 711 and 718 c.e. Muslim Spain represented a point of encounter between the Islamic world and Christian Europe

Byzantine Empire

The surviving eastern Roman Empire and one of the centers of Christendom during the medieval centuries. The Byzantine Empire was founded at the end of the third century, when the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves, and survived until its conquest by Muslim forces in 1453

Constantinople

New capital for the eastern half of the Roman Empire; _______________ highly defensible and economically important site helped ensure the city's cultural and strategic importance for many centuries.

Caesaropapism

is the idea of combining the social and political power of secular government with religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity

The eastern orthodox church is the second largest Christian church with approximately 220 million Baptist members.

Crusades

A term used to describe the holy wars waged by western Christendom against the forces of islam in Western Mediterranean from 1095 to 1291 and on the Iberian Peninsula into the fifteenth century.

Kievan Rus

A culturally diverse civilization that emerged around the city of Kiev in the ninth century C.E. and adopted Christianity in the tenth, thus linking the emerging Russian state to the world of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Western Christendom

Western European branch of Christianity, also known as Roman Catholicism, that gradually defined itself as separate from Eastern Orthodoxy, with a major break occurring in 1054 C.E.; characterized by its relative independence from the state and its recognition of the authority of the pope.

Roman Catholic Church

Western European branch of Christianity that gradually defined itself as separate from Eastern Orthodoxy, with a major break occurring in 1054 C.E. that still has not been overcome. By the eleventh century, Western Christendom was centered on the people as the ultimate authority in matters of doctrine. The Church struggled to remain independent of established political authorities.

European Renaissance

A "rebirth" of classical learning that is most often associated with the cultural blossoming of Italy in the period 1350-1500 and that included not just a rediscovery of Greek and Roman learning but also major developments in art, as well as growing secularism in society. It spread to Northern Europe after 1400.

Maya civilization

A major civilization of Mesoamerica known for the most elaborate writing system in the Americas and other intellectual and artistic achievements; flourished from 250 to 900 C.E.

Aztec Empire

Major state that developed in what is now Mexico in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; dominated by the semi-nomadic mexica, who had migrated from the region from northern Mexico.

Inca Empire

The Western Hemisphere's largest imperial stature in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Built by a relatively small community of Quechua-speaking people (the Incas), the empire stretched some 2,500 miles along the Andes Mountains, which run nearly the entire length of the west coast of South America, and contained perhaps 10 million subjects.