unit 8 ap world vocab

belt and road initiative

An early twenty-first-century initiative of the Chinese government to create a global infrastructure of roads, railways, port facilities, and energy pipelines. Sometimes called a New Silk Road

cold war

Geopolitical and ideological conflict between communist regimes and capitalist powers after World War II, spreading from Eastern Europe through Asia; characterized by the avoidance of direct military conflict between the USSR and the United States and an arms race in nuclear weapons

cuban missle crisis

Major standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba; the confrontation ended in compromise, with the USSR removing its missiles in exchange for the United States agreeing not to invade Cuba

Cultural Revolution

China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a massive campaign launched by Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s to combat the capitalist tendencies that he believed reached into even the highest ranks of the Communist Party; the campaign threw China into chaos

decolonization

Process in which many African and Asian states won their independence from Western colonial rule, in most cases by negotiated settlement and in some cases through violent military confrontations

Deng Xiaoping

Leader of China from 1978 to 1997 whose reforms dismantled many of the distinctly communist elements of the Chinese economy.

European Economic Community

An alliance formed in 1957 by six Western European countries dedicated to developing common trade policies and reduced tariffs; it gradually developed into the larger European Union.

globalization of democracy

Late twentieth-century political shift that brought popular movements, multiparty elections, and new constitutions to countries around the world

Great Leap Forward

Communist push for collectivization that created “people’s communes” and aimed to mobilize China’s population for rapid development.

Indian National Congress

The political party led by Mahatma Gandhi that succeeded in bringing about Indian independence from Britain in 1947

Iranian Revolution

Establishment of a radically Islamist government in Iran in 1979; helped trigger a war with Iraq in the 1980s

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Struggle between the Jewish state of Israel and the adjacent Palestinian Muslim territories that has generated periodic wars and upheavals since 1948

Mao Zedong

Chairman of China’s Communist Party and de facto ruler of China from 1949 until his death

Marshall Plan

Huge U.S. government initiative to aid in the post–World War II recovery of Western Europe that was put into effect in 1948

Mikhail Gorbachev

Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 whose efforts to reform the USSR led to its collapse

Mohandas Gandhi

Often known as “Mahatma” or “Great Soul,” the political leader of the Indian drive for independence from Great Britain; rejected the goal of modern industrialization and advocated nonviolence

Muslim League

Political group formed in response to the Indian National Congress in India’s struggle for independence from Britain; the League’s leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, argued that regions of India with a Muslim majority should form a separate state called Pakistan

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A military alliance, created in 1949, between the United States and various European countries; largely aimed at defending against the threat of Soviet aggression during the cold war

Syrian civil war

Conflict beginning in 2011 that generated over 12 million refugees and asylum seekers by mid-2016 and engaged both regional and world powers on various sides of the conflict

Warsaw Pact

A military alliance between the Soviet Union and communist states in Eastern Europe, created in 1955 as a counterweight to NATO; expressed the tensions of the cold war in Europe