World Civilizations Midterm
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36 Terms
Middle Passage
What: The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas as part of the transatlantic slave trade.
Why: It supplied enslaved labor to plantations and colonial economies, caused immense human suffering, and helped establish slavery as a major part of Atlantic economic development.
Triangular Trade
What: A network of Atlantic trade connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the exchange of manufactured goods, enslaved people, and colonial products.
Why: It enriched European merchants and empires, expanded the transatlantic slave trade, and connected the economies of three continents.
Aztec Empire
What: A powerful Indigenous empire in central Mexico, centered on the city of Tenochtitlan, before the Spanish conquest in 1521.
Why: Its conquest by Spain expanded Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and transformed Indigenous societies through colonization, disease, and forced labor.
Columbian Exchange
What: The transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and cultural practices between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia following Columbus's 1492 voyage.
Why: It transformed global diets, agriculture, populations, and economies. European diseases devastated Indigenous American populations, while American crops spread throughout the world.
Joint-Stock Company
What: A business in which multiple investors pool their money and share profits and financial risks.
Why: Joint-stock companies financed expensive overseas voyages, trade, and colonization. They helped European countries expand their commercial empires.
Mercantilism
What: An economic system in which governments sought to increase national wealth through controlled trade, exports, and the acquisition of colonies and resources.
Why: It encouraged European countries to compete for colonies and exploit colonial resources to strengthen their economies and political power.
Diaspora
What: The dispersal of a population from its ancestral homeland to different regions of the world.
Why: Diasporas spread religions, ideas, languages, and cultural traditions while allowing communities to preserve their identities. The African diaspora, for example, was shaped in large part by the forced migration of enslaved Africans.
Martin Luther
What: A German monk and religious reformer who challenged Catholic Church practices in 1517, including the sale of indulgences.
Why: His criticisms helped begin the Protestant Reformation, which divided Western Christianity and challenged the Catholic Church's religious authority in Europe.
The Peasant War
What: The German Peasants' War of 1524–1525, a series of revolts in which peasants demanded relief from economic hardship and oppressive social conditions.
Why: It revealed tensions between social classes during the Reformation. The revolt's defeat demonstrated that religious reform did not necessarily bring social and economic equality.
Peace of Westphalia
What: A series of treaties signed in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe.
Why: The treaties reshaped European political and religious relations and strengthened the idea that states had authority over their own territories and internal affairs.
Divine-Right Monarchy
What: The belief that monarchs received their authority directly from God and therefore were not accountable to their subjects in the same way as ordinary rulers.
Why: It justified absolute monarchy and helped kings strengthen their power. The idea was challenged by movements advocating constitutional government and greater political rights.
Janissaries
What: Elite infantry soldiers who served the Ottoman Empire. Many early Janissaries were recruited through the devshirme system, which took Christian boys from some Ottoman territories for state service.
Why: They provided the Ottoman sultan with a powerful, centrally controlled military force that helped the empire expand and maintain authority.
Zamindars
What: Indian landholders or local tax collectors who played an important role in collecting agricultural revenue, particularly under the Mughal Empire.
Why: They connected imperial governments to rural communities and helped fund the state through agricultural taxes. Their power also influenced landownership and rural social relations.
Suleyman the Magnificent
What: An Ottoman sultan who ruled from 1520 to 1566 and became one of the empire's most influential leaders.
Why: He expanded Ottoman territory, strengthened laws and administration, and supported architecture and culture. His reign represented a high point of Ottoman political and military power.
Akbar the Great
What: A Mughal emperor who ruled much of India from 1556 to 1605.
Why: He expanded and strengthened the Mughal Empire through administrative reforms and a relatively tolerant approach toward different religions. His policies helped him govern India's diverse population.
British East India Company
What: An English trading company founded in 1600 that conducted trade in Asia, especially in India.
Why: The company gradually gained military and political authority in India, eventually controlling large territories. Its expansion helped establish British colonial rule.
Emperor Kangxi
What: A Qing dynasty emperor who ruled China from 1661 to 1722.
Why: He consolidated Qing control, expanded China's territory, and strengthened imperial government. His reign helped establish the stability and power of the Qing dynasty.
Daimyo
What: Powerful Japanese regional lords who controlled land, resources, and samurai warriors during feudal Japan.
Why: Their competition shaped Japanese warfare and politics. The struggles among daimyo helped lead to Japan's eventual unification and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Agricultural Revolution
What: The major improvements in farming methods, tools, and crop production that occurred especially in Britain during the 1700s.
Why: Increased agricultural productivity provided more food, supported population growth, and released workers from farming. These changes helped create the conditions needed for the Industrial Revolution.
Scientific Revolution
What: A period of major scientific discoveries and changes in thinking during the 1500s and 1600s, when scholars increasingly relied on observation, experimentation, and mathematics.
Why: It challenged traditional explanations of the natural world and helped establish modern scientific methods. It also influenced the Enlightenment by encouraging people to question established authority.
Voltaire
What: A French Enlightenment writer and philosopher known for criticizing religious intolerance and abuses of political power.
Why: He promoted civil liberties, freedom of expression, and religious tolerance. His ideas influenced Enlightenment thinking and later movements for political and social reform.
French Revolution
What: A revolution that began in France in 1789, driven by financial crisis, social inequality, and opposition to absolute monarchy.
Why: It overthrew the old political order and challenged inherited privilege. It spread ideas of citizenship, equality before the law, and popular sovereignty throughout Europe and beyond.
Karl Marx
What: A German philosopher and political economist who criticized capitalism and co-wrote The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels.
Why: Marx argued that history was shaped by class struggle and that capitalism exploited workers. His ideas influenced socialist and communist movements, labor activism, and political revolutions.
Revolutions of 1848
What: A wave of revolutions across Europe in 1848, in which people demanded political rights, constitutional government, national independence, and social reforms.
Why: Although many uprisings failed in the short term, they weakened conservative political systems and strengthened liberalism, nationalism, and demands for greater representation.
Nationalism
What: A political and cultural belief that people who share a national identity, history, language, or culture should have unity or the right to govern themselves.
Why: Nationalism inspired independence movements and the unification of countries such as Germany and Italy. It also increased competition between nations and contributed to imperial rivalries and conflict.
Unification of Germany
What: The process that united numerous German states into the German Empire in 1871, under the leadership of Prussia and its minister Otto von Bismarck.
Why: It demonstrated the power of nationalism and created a strong new European state. Germany's rise changed the balance of power in Europe and contributed to later rivalries.
Industrial Revolution
What: The transition from primarily agricultural, hand-produced economies to mechanized factory production, which began in Britain during the 1700s.
Why: It transformed manufacturing, transportation, cities, and working conditions. It expanded industrial capitalism, increased demand for raw materials, and helped industrialized countries gain economic and imperial power.
Middle Class
What: A social group generally positioned between the working class and the wealthy elite, including professionals, merchants, business owners, and managers.
Why: Industrialization and commercial growth expanded the middle class. Its members influenced education, consumer culture, political reform, and demands for greater participation in government.
Social Darwinism
What: The misuse of evolutionary ideas to argue that competition between human groups and societies naturally resulted in some being superior to others.
Why: It was used to justify racism, colonialism, imperialism, and social inequality. It falsely presented the domination of certain peoples as natural or inevitable.
Suffragist
What: A person who campaigned for voting rights, especially the right of women to vote.
Why: Suffragists challenged women's exclusion from political life and helped expand democracy and women's rights. Their activism contributed to the eventual adoption of women's suffrage in many countries.
Cubism
What: A modern art movement developed in the early 1900s, especially by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that represented subjects through geometric shapes and multiple viewpoints.
Why: Cubism challenged traditional perspective and realistic representation. It helped transform modern art by encouraging artists to experiment with new ways of depicting reality.
Toussaint L'Ouverture
What: A military and political leader of the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 as an uprising against slavery and French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue.
Why: He helped organize formerly enslaved people into a powerful revolutionary force and challenged slavery and racial hierarchy. The revolution ultimately led to Haiti's independence in 1804.
Scramble for Africa
What: The rapid takeover and division of most of Africa by European powers during the late 1800s.
Why: European countries competed for raw materials, markets, strategic territory, and international prestige. Colonial rule disrupted African societies, exploited African resources and labor, and imposed borders whose effects continue today.
Opium War
What: Conflicts between Britain and Qing China beginning in 1839, driven partly by Britain's opium trade and China's efforts to suppress it.
Why: China's defeat forced it to accept unequal treaties, open treaty ports, and grant foreign privileges. The wars weakened Qing authority and increased foreign influence in China.
Meiji Restoration
What: A major political transformation in Japan beginning in 1868 that ended the Tokugawa shogunate and restored governing authority to the emperor.
Why: Japan rapidly modernized its government, military, education, and industry to resist Western domination. Its industrial and military growth helped Japan become a major world power.
Self-Strengthening Movement
What: An effort in nineteenth-century China to adopt Western military technology, industrial methods, and selected scientific knowledge while maintaining traditional Chinese institutions.
Why: The movement aimed to strengthen China against foreign imperialism. Its limited success exposed weaknesses in Qing reform and highlighted the difficulties of responding to Western military and economic power.