world civ II - test one

absolutism

Term applied to strong centralized continental monarchies that attempted to make royal power dominant over aristocracies and other regional authorities.

Ahura Mazda

Main/major god in Zoroastrianism.

Annam

The name given by the Chinese to modern-day Vietnam, meaning 'peaceful' or 'pacified South'.

chattel slavery

A form of slavery in which humans are owned as goods; the slave has no legal standing as a person and few, if any, rights.

devshirme

The system under the Ottoman Empire that required each province to furnish a levy of Christian boys who were raised as Muslims and became soldiers in the Ottoman army.

divine right of kings

The theory that monarchs are appointed by and answerable only to God.

encomienda

The grant by the Spanish Crown to a colonist of the labor of a specific number of Indians for a set period of time.

family economy

The basic structure of production and consumption in preindustrial Europe.

gentry

In China, a largely urban, landowning class that represented local interests and functioned as quasi-bureaucrats under the magistrates.

Grand Mufti

The chief religious authority of the Ottoman Empire. Also called 'the Shaykh of Islam'.

hacienda

Large landed estates in Spanish America.

Janissaries

Elite Ottoman troops who were recruited through the devshirme.

Kabuki

A realistic form of Japanese theater similar to English Elizabethan drama.

Mahdi

The Islamic idea prominent in Shi’ite thought of the 'guided one,' an eschatological figure who will usher in a messianic age and judgment day that will see the faithful rewarded.

mercantilism

Term used to describe close government control of the economy that sought to maximize exports and accumulate as much precious metals as possible to enable the state to defend its economic and political interests.

Middle Passage

The transatlantic crossing of ships carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas and Caribbean.

National Studies

A Japanese intellectual tradition that emphasized native Japanese culture and institutions and rejected the influence of Chinese Confucianism.

Old Regime

Term applied to the pattern of social, political, and economic relationships and institutions that existed in Europe before the French Revolution.

Puritans

English Protestants who sought to 'purify' the Church of England of any vestiges of Catholicism.

Yangban

Elite Korean families of the Choson period.