Modern history key concepts

Great Mutiny

The last armed resistance to british rule in India - 1857

Indian Civil Service

Bureaucracy that administered the government of India. Entry required one to pass exams only offered in england

Indian national congress

A political assosciation formed in 1885 that worked for Indian self-government

Java war

1825-1830 war between the dutch and the javanese over dutch control of the island

Nguyen dynasty

The last Vietnamese ruling house, lasted from 1802 to 1945

Opium war

1839-1842 war between the british and chinese over limitations on trade and the importation of opium into China

Extraterritoriality

Legal principle that exempts individuals from local war - applicable in China because of agreements reached after China's loss of the opium war

Taiping Rebellion

Rebellion by believers of the religious teachings of Hong Xiuquan - began until 1851, suppressed until 1864

Boxers

Chinese secret society that blamed the country's problems on foreigners and rose in rebellion in 1900

1911 Revolution

Uprising that ended china's monarchy

Gunboat diplomacy

The imposition of treaties and agreements under the threat of military violence - eg opening of Japan to trade by Commodore Perry

Meiji restoration

The 1867 ousting of the Tokugawa Shogunate that restored power of the Japanese emperors

Russo-Japanese war

1904-5 war between Russia and Japan fought over imperial influence and territory in Manchuria

Indentured labourers

Labourers who agreed to a term of employment under a contract

Caudillismo

Government by figures who rule through personal charisma and the support of armed followers in Latin America. Large landowners had local political power and refused to give it up in favor of central government - power vacuum for caudillos. However, they only cultivated their own prestige instead of building stable political institutions

Circum-Caribbean

The region encompassing the Antilles as well as the lands that bound the Caribbean Sea in Central America and northern South America. Imperial ambition of USA towards Mexico and Circum-Caribbean.

Oligarchs

In Latin America, the small number of individuals and families that had monopolized political power and economic resources since the colonial era. Liberalism mainly served them - preserved slavery and concentrated political power + wealth.

Manifest destiny

The doctrine that the United States should absorb the territory spanning from the original Atlantic states to the Pacific Ocean. Territorial expansion at the expenses of Mexico and Indian nations. In Mexico - instability because political leaders could not agree on how the new nation should be governed, and power was mostly in hands of local caudillos.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The 1848 treaty between the United States and Mexico in which Mexico ceded large tracts of land to the United States. After USA expansion westward - war with Mexico 1846 - 1848, after this treaty where Mexico lost half of its territory.

Lerdo Law

An 1856 Mexican law that banned corporate landholdings (such as church and landowners), effort to replace them by small rural farms. Part of Mexico's liberal reforms - Benito Juarez

Neocolonialism

The establishment of political and economic influence over regions after they have ceased to be formal colonies. Brazil was formally independent from UK, but informally dependent on it as Portugal was in 18th century (colonization country) => negotiation for low import tariffs in Brazil leading to inhibition if industrialization.

Free womb laws

Laws passed across the nineteenth-century Americas that instituted a gradual form of abolition through which children born to slaves gained their freedom. Passed in Spanish America - and with combination of freedom for military service, by the time of abolition of slavery in Latin America, most of the people were already free (Unlike in USA).

Latifundia

- Vast landed estates in Latin America. Government wanted to create many small farms in Argentine, but because they were selling a really large parcels, only few people could afford it, so they made exactly the opposite

Porfiriato

The regime of Porfirio Díaz, who presided in Mexico from 1876 to 1880 and again from 1884 to 1911. He created political stability by rewarding supporters and punishing opponents. However, he used modernization and economic development as a justification for range of abuses. Moreover, with foreign investments became land valuable, and therefore were passed some laws resulting in usurpation of land.

Plan de Ayala

Document written by Zapatistas during the Mexican Revolution that demanded the government return all land, forests, and waters taken from rural communities. Beginning of Mexican revolution.

Anarcho-syndicalism

A version of anarchism that advocated placing power in the hands of workers' unions. A working class in Brazil and Argentina was gradually created - mostly immigrants from Europe, and this was their ideology that challenged liberalism. General strikes - but only in Mexico it merged with rural unrest.

Monroe Doctrine

An 1823 proclamation that established a U.S. sphere of influence over the Americas by opposing European imperialism on the continent. USA wanted to keep EU influence outside of Latin America (where before USA intervened many times - to protect economics interests). A byproduct of manifest destiny.

Roosevelt Corollary

A supplement to the Monroe Doctrine stating that the United States would correct what it saw as "chronic wrongdoing" in neighboring countries

Militarism

The glorification of the military as the supreme ideal of the state with all other interests subordinate to it.

Triple Entente

Alliance of Great Britain, France and Russia in WW1

Trench warfare

Fighting behind rows of trenches, mines, and barbed wire; used in World War I with a staggering cost in lives and minimal gains in territory.

Total war

A war in which the government controls all aspects of economic and social life in order to make the greatest possible military effort

March revolution

The first phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which unplanned uprisings led to the abdication of the tsar and the establishment of a transitional democratic government that was then overthrown in November by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Petrograd Soviet

A counter-government to the 1917 Russian provisional government (they had to share power), this organization was a huge, fluctuating mass meeting of two to three thousand workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals. They weakened provisional government and made radical orders - such as Army No. 1. - stripped officer of their authority and gave it to the elected committees of common soldiers.

War communism

The application of the total-war concept to a civil conflict; the Bolsheviks seized grain from peasants, introduced rationing, nationalized all banks and industry, and required everyone to work. It provided the Red Army with supplies, but also helped normal economics activity. Revolutionary terror also contributed to victory - re-establishing secret police and executing enemies including tsar with family.

Bolsheviks

The "majority group"; this was Lenin's camp of the Russian party of Marxist socialism. They demanded a small, elitist, disciplined party, compared to Mensheviks who wanted a more democratic party with mass membership.

League of Nations

A permanent international organization established during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to protect member states from aggression and avert future wars. Idealism for world without wars, initiated by Woodrow Wilson

Treaty of Versailles

1919 peace settlement that ended WW1 - declared Germany responsible for the war, limited Germany's army, forced them to pay huge reparations and give up Alsace-Lorraine to France and some territory to Poland

Dawes Plan

Plan to revive Germany's economy - reduced Germany's yearly reparations, made payment dependent on German economic prosperity, and granted Germany large loans from the United States to promote recovery.

Existentialism

A philosophy that stresses the meaninglessness of existence and the search for moral values in a world of terror and uncertainty

Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler's autobiography, published in 1925, which also contains Hitler's political ideology, including Social Darwinism theories etc.

id, ego and superego

Freudian terms for the primitive, irrational unconscious (id), the rationalizing conscious that mediates what a person can do (ego), and the ingrained moral values that specify what a person should do (superego).

Modernism

A variety of cultural movements at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth that rebelled against traditional forms and conventions of the past.

Functionalism

The principle that buildings, like industrial products, should serve the purpose for which they were made as well as possible

Middle powers

Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War. For example Mexico, Brazil, France, Germany, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, Israel - all regional leaders.

Permanent mandates commission

A commission created by the League of Nations to oversee the developed nations’ fulfillment of their international responsibility toward their mandates. Compromise between Wilson’s idealism and European desire for colonies. The people incapable of governing themselves should be governed by developed nations – and this commission should oversee it. =>development towards independence, but the implementation was up to powers

Sykes-Picot agreement

The 1916 secret agreement between Britain and France that divided up the Arab lands of Lebanon, Syria, southern Turkey, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. Arabs were promised an independent Arab state by UK, but UK signed this agreement that contradicted this promise – Arabs felt bitter and betrayed.

Balfour declaration

A 1917 statement by British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour that supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It did contradictory promises to Middle Eastern Arabs and European Jews.

Treaty of Lausanne

The 1923 treaty that ended the Turkish war and recognized the territorial integrity of a truly independent Turkey. Turkey after many losses won several victories thanks to Mustafa Kemal against Greece and Britain (did not recognize dismembering of country), resulting in peace and this treaty.

Majlis

The national assembly established by the despotic shah of Iran in 1906. The establishment was forced, in area of Persia, because of foreign pressure – effort to build unified modern nation. It was impossible, however, as Russia and UK divided spheres of influence, and after Russian revolution, UK filled the power vacuum – installing advisors.

Kibbutz

A Jewish collective farm, first established by Zionists in Palestine, on which each member shared equally in the work, rewards, and defense. Jews were because of UK promise moving to Middle East gradually forming a nation. Modernization besides others was because of kibbutz.

Lucknow pact

A 1916 alliance between the Hindus leading the Indian National Congress Party and the Muslim League. Because of war in Europe – India experienced inflation, high taxes, food shortages and epidemic – reviewing the nationalistic movement. The radicals in National Congress Party (Hindu) signed this Pact, trying to gain same autonomy as Canada.

Satyagraha

Loosely translated as “soul force,” which Gandhi believed was the means of striving for truth and social justice through love, suffering, and conversion of the oppressor. Nonviolent resistance

May Fourth Movement

A Chinese nationalist movement against foreign imperialists and warlord rule; it began as a 1919 student protest against the decision of the Paris Peace Conference to leave the Shandong Peninsula in the hands of Japan. Warlords – local military leaders in China holding power (after death of dictator Yuan Shigai – first revolution), leading to wars, corruption, and high taxes. This movement looked to the Russia as a model for their own revolution – again led by Sun Yatsen. He was not a communist, however, his main principle was nationalism.

New Culture Movement

An intellectual revolution beginning in 1916 that attacked traditional Chinese, particularly Confucian, culture and promoted Western ideas of science, democracy, and individualism. Many advocated Marxist socialism, as it provided a way to criticize Western dominance.

Zaibatsu

Giant conglomerate firms established in Japan beginning in the Meiji period and lasting until the end of World War II. They dominated particular sector of economy (unorganized peasants and farmers), creating financial oligarchy, corruption of government officials, and a weak middle class

Long March

The 6,000-mile retreat of the Chinese Communist army in 1934 to a remote region on the northwestern border of China, during which tens of thousands lost their lives. During China civil war, Communist army retreated to distant province before attacks of National army (of National Communist Party)

Bazaar economy

An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.

Multinational corporations

Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective. They treated world as one big market, escaping political controls and national policies.

Global warming

The consensus view of an overwhelming majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Feminisation of poverty

The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women. It is because they take care of household and children the most - which limits their education and employment options.

Green revolution

Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements. For example wheat in Mexico and rice in China - 2 to 4 times more per year.

Digital divide

The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations. As the internet became more integrated to business and education, people with no or limited access face growing disadvantage.

New Deal

Delano Roosevelt’s plan to reform capitalism in the United States through forceful government intervention in the economy. He created many agencies and launched many public work projects so the federal government could employ as many people as possible.

Popular Front

A party formed in 1936 in France that encouraged unions and launched a far

totalitarianism

A radical dictatorship that exercises complete political power and control over all aspects of society and seeks to mobilize the masses for action.

fascism

A movement characterized by extreme, often expansionist nationalism, anti

Five year plan

Launched by Stalin in 1928 and termed the “revolution from above,” its goal was to modernize the Soviet Union and generate a Communist society with new attitudes, new loyalties, and a new socialist humanity.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

Lenin’s 1921 policy re-establishing limited economic freedom in the Soviet Union in an attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry in the face of economic disintegration.

collectivization

Stalin’s forcible consolidation, beginning in 1929, of individual peasant farms in the Soviet Union into large, state

Black Shirts

A private army under Mussolini in Italy that destroyed Socialist newspapers, union halls, and local Socialist Party headquarters, eventually pushing Socialists out of the city governments of northern Italy. Mussolini seized power in 1922.

Lateran Agreement

A 1929 agreement in which Mussolini in Italy recognized the Vatican as an independent state and agreed to give the church heavy financial support in return for the pope’s public support.

Nazism

A movement born of extreme nationalism and racism and dominated by Adolf Hitler from 1933 until the end of World War II in 1945.

Enabling Act

An act pushed through the Reichstag by the Nazis in 1933 that gave Hitler absolute dictatorial power for four years. The Nazis won only 44 % of votes in 1933, so Hitler outlawed communist party and arrested its members, and afterwards seizure power.

Blitzkrieg

“Lightning war” using planes, tanks, and trucks, first used by Hitler to crush Poland in four weeks.

New Order

Hitler’s program, based on the guiding principle of racial imperialism, which gave preferential treatment to the Nordic peoples above “inferior” Latin peoples and, at the bottom, “subhuman” Slavs and Jews

Holocaust

The attempted systematic extermination of all European Jews and other “undesirables” by the Nazi state during World War II.

Europe first policy

The military strategy, set forth by Churchill and adopted by Roosevelt, that called for the defeat of Hitler in Europe before the United States launched an all

Cold War

The post–World War II conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Satellites of USSR – protection against western aggression.

Truman Doctrine

The 1945 American policy of preventing the spread of Communist rule. They provided politics and economics support to government threatened by Communist control. Firstly aid for Turkey and Greece, than Marshall plan…

Marshall Plan

A 1948 American plan for providing economic aid to Europe to help it rebuild after World War II. Stalin refused it for eastern Europe – approved after overthrown of democratically elected government in Czechoslovakia.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an anti

dependency theory

The belief, formulated in Latin America in the mid-twentieth century, that development in some areas of the world locks other nations into underdevelopment. That means, the first developed countries (UK and USA) hinder economic development of the later industrializing countries.

modernization theory

The belief, held in countries such as the United States in the mid-twentieth century, that all countries evolved in a linear progression from traditional to mature. Help for countries to develop – but USA “helpers” did not always understand local conditions leading to negative consequences and mistrust of USA aid.

import substitution industrialization (ISI)

The use of trade barriers to keep certain foreign products out of one’s country so that domestic industry can emerge and produce the same goods. This wasn’t enough, however, and deep social reforms were needed – redistribution of land and state control of major industries and banks in order to this reform was successful. Unfortunately, reformists governments were deposed in military coups… (As in Guatemala, where they tried to redistribute land owned by USA landowners)

liberation theology

A movement within the Catholic Church to support the poor in situations of exploitation that emerged with particular force in Latin America in the 1960s. Priests challenged governments, fought against landowners and business owners – Marxists theory. Popes suppressed this theology afterwards.

Muslim League

Political party founded in 1906 in colonial India that advocated for a separate Muslim homeland after independence. Muhammad Ali Jinnah feared Hindu’s domination of power and therefore proposed creation of two nations, whereas Ghandi disagreed, because it would lead to sectarianism instead of collaboration.

Arab socialism

A modernizing, secular, and nationalist project of nation building in the Middle East aimed at economic development and the development of a strong military. New nations in postwar period emerging from colonial rule.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Created in 1964, a loose union of Palestinian refugee groups opposed to Israel and united in the goal of establishing a Palestinian state. After end of British protectorate over Palestine, Jews proclaimed Israel. Arab countries attacked, but were defeated, resulting in a number of refugees from Palestine – opposed to Israel and hoping to create united Palestinian state again. Many conflict with Arab countries (Syria, Egypt, …).

Great Leap Forward

Mao Zedong’s acceleration of Chinese development in which industrial growth was to be based on small

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

A movement launched in 1965 by Mao Zedong that attempted to recapture the revolutionary fervor of his guerrilla struggle. Army and young people responded enthusiastically, organizing themselves in radical cadres. They sought to destroy all traces of feudal and bourgeois culture, destroying ancient art pieces.

Pan Africanists

People who, through a movement beginning in 1919, sought black solidarity and envisioned a vast self-governing union of all African peoples. Anticolonial nationalism, efforts for end of discrimination.

cocoa holdups

Mass protests in Africa’s Gold Coast in the 1930s by producers of cocoa who refused to sell their beans to British firms and instead sold them directly to European and American chocolate manufacturers. The prizes dropped during Great depression and they refused to sell coca beans for fixed prizes to British firms.

National Liberation Front

The anticolonial movement in Algeria, which began a war against the French in 1954 and won independence in 1962. After creation of independent Algerian state, many Europeans and Jews flew. It also divided France, so it was unable to respond to nationalists in other African states till Charles de Gaulle returned to power.

Common Market

The European Economic Community created in 1957. European states believed that only unity could prevent future conflict – firstly Coal and Steel community, then Common market – primary goal was to eliminate trade barriers and create market almost as big as in USA.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

A cartel formed in 1960 by oil-exporting countries designed to coordinate oil production and raise prices, giving those countries greater capacity for economic development and greater leverage in world affairs. They agreed on embargo after European and USA support of Israel in Yom Kippur War. It disrupted economics – and USA was powerless to reverse it.

petrodollars

The global recirculation by international banks of profits from the higher price of oil following the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Profits from OPEC embargo were deposited in international banks – and they loaned this capital to foreign governments (cycle). Many industrializing countries faced both high energy prizes and heavy debts.

neoliberalism

A return beginning in the 1980s to policies intended to promote free markets and the free circulation of capital across national borders.

Washington Consensus

Policies restricting public spending, lowering import barriers, privatizing state enterprises, and deregulating markets in response to the 1980s debt crisis in Latin America. Governments had to borrow more and more to pay the interests.

intifada

Beginning in 1987, a prolonged campaign of civil disobedience by Palestinian youth against Israeli soldiers; the Arabic word intifada means “shaking off.” As a result – agreement between Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, led by Yasir Arafat) and Israel – Israel granted Palestinian self