Communism:
a political theory derived from Marxism, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Tanzimat:
a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The era began with the purpose, not of radical transformation, but of modernization, desiring to consolidate the social and political foundations of the Ottoman Empire. It was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire and to secure its territorial integrity against internal nationalist movements and external aggressive powers. The reforms encouraged Ottomanism among the diverse ethnic groups of the Empire and attempted to stem the tide of nationalist movements within the Ottoman Empire.
Hatt-I Humayan:
an edict issued by the Ottoman sultan that updated the legal system, declaring equality for all men in education, government appointments, and justice regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Millets:
In the Ottoman Empire, these were separate legal courts established by different religious communities, each using its own set of religious laws.
Self-Strengthening Movement:
a campaign for economic and military reform in China, inspired by the nation's military weakness in the mid-19th century
Hundred Days of Reform:
a failed 103-day national, cultural, political, and educational reform movement from June to September, 1898, in late Qing dynasty China. It was undertaken by the young Guangxu Emperor and his reform-minded supporters. Following the issuing of the reformative edicts, a coup d'état was perpetrated by powerful conservative opponents.
The Philosophes:
were the intellectuals of the 18th-century Enlightenment. They were public intellectuals who applied reason to the study of many areas of learning, including philosophy, history, science, politics, economics, and social issues.
Baron Montesquieu:
was a French judge, man of letters, and political philosopher. He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word "despotism" in the political lexicon. His anonymously-published "The Spirit of Law" in 1748, which was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Founding Fathers in drafting the United States Constitution.
Voltaire:
a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Rousseau:
a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought. His "Discourse on Inequality" and "The Social Contract" are cornerstones in modern political and social thought.
Adam Smith:
a Scottish economist, philosopher and author as well as a moral philosopher, a pioneer of political economy and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment, also known as ''The Father of Economics'' or ''The Father of Capitalism''
Laissez-faire:
a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.
Deism:
belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.
Henri de Saint-Simon:
a French political and economic theorist and businessman whose thought played a substantial role in influencing politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He created a political and economic ideology known as 'Utopian Socialism'.
Charles Fourier:
a French philosopher, influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of his social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become mainstream thinking in modern society. For instance, he is credited with having originated the word "feminism" in 1837.
Transcontinental Railroad:
a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants.
Steam Engine:
a heat engine that performs mechanical work. Usually, James Watt is credited with its invention.
James Watt:
a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine.
Steel:
an alloy of iron and carbon. Because of its high tensile strength and low cost, it is a major component used in buildings, infrastructure, tools, ships, trains, automobiles, machines, appliances, and weapons.
Second Industrial Revolution:
a period when advances in steel production, electricity and petroleum caused a series of innovations that changed society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Muhammad Ali:
the Ottoman governor of Egypt from 1805 to 1848. Though not a modern nationalist, he is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt. He attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres. He also initiated a violent purge of the Mamluks, consolidating his rule and permanently ending the Mamluk hold over Egypt.
Matthew Perry:
a Commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.
Zaibatsu:
a large Japanese business conglomerate. Originally a family owned business.
Meiji Restoration:
a Japanese political and social revolution that overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate and restored the emperor to power. During this period, Japan rapidly industrialized and adopted western ideas and production methods.
Robert Owen:
a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, was one founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. He is known for efforts to improve factory working conditions for his workers and promote experimental socialistic communities. In the early 1800s, he became wealthy as an investor and eventual manager of a large textile mill at New Lanark, Scotland. He had initially trained as a draper in Stamford, Lincolnshire and worked in London before relocating aged 18 to Manchester and becoming a textile manufacturer. In 1824, he travelled to America and invested most of his fortune in an experimental socialistic community at New Harmony, Indiana, a preliminary model for his utopian society. It lasted about two years
Fabian Society:
a British socialist organization whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.
Classical Liberalism:
a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom. Closely related to economic liberalism, it developed in the early 19th century, building on ideas from the previous century as a response to urbanization and to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States. Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo. It drew on classical economics, especially the economic ideas as espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations and on a belief in natural law, progress and utilitarianism.
Feminism:
the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
Mary Wollstonecraft:
an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. She is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences. She is best known for "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.
Abolitionism:
was the movement to end slavery.
Zionism:
a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897.
Anti-Semitism:
hostility to or prejudice against Jews.
Theodor Herzl:
a Jewish Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern political Zionism.
Thomas Paine:
an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored the two most influential pamphlets (including 'Common Sense') at the start of the American Revolution and inspired the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights.
Conservatism:
is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of this philosophy include tradition, organic society, hierarchy, authority, and property rights. They seek to preserve a range of institutions such as religion, parliamentary government, and property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity
Utopian socialism:
the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, Robert Owen and Henry George. It is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction.
Nationalism:
an ideology and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people) especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland.
Declaration of the Rights of Man:
a human civil rights document written in 1789 by the National Assembly during the French Revolution.
The Reign of Terror:
a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established in which multiple massacres and public executions occurred in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and frivolous accusations of treason by Maximilien Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety.
Liberte, egalitie, fraternite:
the national motto of France and a rallying cry during the French Revolution. It is an example of a tripartite motto.
Toussaint L'Ouverture:
a former slave and the leader of the Haitian Revolution.
Simon Bolivar:
a creole, Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the states of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama to independence from the Spanish Empire. Is known as the 'George Washington' of South America
Realpolitik:
a system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations.
Mazzini:
an Italian politician, journalist, activist for the unification of Italy, and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. Known as the 'Prophet of Italian Unification', he is one of the three 'Founding Fathers' of modern Italy.
Garibaldi:
an Italian general and patriot. A republican, he brought southern Italy into the kingdom of Italy and contributed to Italian unification. He is considered one of the greatest generals of modern times and one of Italy's 'Founding Fathers'.
Risorgimento:
an ideological and literary movement that helped to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people, and it led to a series of political events that freed the Italian states from foreign domination and united them politically.
Otto von Bismarck:
a conservative German statesman who masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871 and served as its first chancellor until 1890, in which capacity he dominated European affairs for two decades.
Bastille:
a French prison fortress and arsenal that was stormed and captured by revolutionaries during the French Revolution.
James Hargreaves:
a weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. He was one of three men responsible for the mechanization of spinning: He is credited with inventing the Spinning Jenny in 1764.
Interchangeable parts:
components that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting, such as filing. This idea was introduced by Eli Whitney when he developed weapons for the U.S. military.
Division of labor:
the assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency. Helped lead to mass production and increased standard of living.
Specialization:
the process of concentrating on and becoming expert in a particular subject or skill. Helped lead to mass production and increased standard of living.
Assembly line:
a series of workers and machines in a factory by which a succession of identical items is progressively put together. This process was perfected by Henry Ford and others during the Industrial Revolution.
Enclosure movement:
a push in the 18th and 19th centuries to take land that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village, or at least available to the public for grazing animals and growing food, and change it to privately owned land, usually with walls, fences or hedges around it. Displaced small farmers and helped lead to the mass migration of rural people to the cities during the Industrial Revolution.
Trans-Siberian Railroad:
a network of railways built between 1891 and 1916 connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East. With a length of 5,772 miles, from Moscow to Vladivostok, it is the longest railway line in the world.
Human capital:
is an intangible asset or quality not listed on a company's balance sheet. It can be classified as the economic value of a worker's experience and skills. This includes assets like education, training, intelligence, skills, health, and other things employers value such as loyalty and punctuality.
Company rule:
was the rule or dominion by the British East India Company over parts of the Indian subcontinent.
Coal:
a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata. Large deposits were found in England and used as a cheap energy source during the Industrial Revolution.
Alexander Graham Bell:
a Scottish-born American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone.
Marconi:
an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission, and a radio telegraph system. He is credited as the inventor of radio.
Charter Oath:
This document outlined the main aims and the course of action to be followed during Emperor Meiji's reign, setting the legal stage for Japan's modernization. This also ended feudalism and set up a process of urbanization as people of all classes were free to move jobs, so people went to the city for better work. It remained influential, if less for governing than inspiring, throughout the Meiji era and into the twentieth century, and can be considered the first constitution of modern Japan.
Corporation:
a company/business or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
Stockholders:
a person who owns some percentage of a public company.
Stock Market:
a place where ownership shares are bought and sold. The most famous one is in New York.
Monopoly:
a market structure in which one company has dominance or market power.
Bessemer Process:
a steel-making process, now largely superseded, in which carbon, silicon, and other impurities are removed from molten pig iron by oxidation in a blast of air in a special tilting retort.
Cecil Rhodes:
a British businessman, mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. Founder of De Beers diamond company.
The Unilever Corporation:
a British-Dutch transnational consumer goods company co-headquartered in London, England, and Rotterdam, Netherlands. One of the first transnational corporations, founded during the Industrial Revolution.
Consumerism:
a social and economic order that encourages an acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.
Friedrich Engels:
a German philosopher, historian, communist, social scientist, sociologist, journalist and businessman. His father was an owner of large textile factories. He co-created Marxist theory.
Communist Manifesto:
an 1848 political document by two German philosophers. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, it was later recognized as one of the world's most influential political documents. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and then-present) and the conflicts of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
Factors of Production:
Land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.
Scientific Socialism:
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. In Marxist theory, a transitional state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.
Richard Arkwright:
an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as the water frame after it was adapted to use water power.
Factory system:
a method of mass manufacturing using machinery, division of labor, specialization, and the assembly line.
Crop rotation:
is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar or different types of crops in the same area in sequenced seasons. It is done so that the soil of farms is not used for only one set of nutrients. It helps in reducing soil erosion and increases soil fertility and yield crop.
Seed drill:
a device that sows the seeds for crops by positioning them in the soil and burying them to a specific depth. This ensures that seeds will be distributed evenly. This device helped lead to the 2nd Agricultural Revolution.
Industrial Revolution:
the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.
Eli Whitney:
an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum (pre-Civil War) American South.
John Stuart Mill:
a British philosopher, political economist, and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He was a proponent of utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism:
promotes political and economic actions that maximize happiness/satisfaction and well-being for the most people. Supported by John Stuart Mill and others.
Proletariat:
According to Marx, these were the working class who had nothing to lose but their chains and would overthrow the bourgeoisie class
Bourgeoisie:
According to Marx, these were the capitalist class of owners who were in conflict with the working class and needed to be overthrown.
Bushido:
"the way of warriors"...is a Japanese collective term for the many codes of honor and ideals that dictated the samurai way of life, loosely analogous to the European concept of chivalry.
Genros:
A body of elder statesmen of Japan, formerly used as informal advisors to the Emperor.
Mahmud II:
He was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. His reign is recognized for the extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms he instituted, which culminated in the Decree of Reorganization.
Empress Cixi:
a Chinese empress dowager and regent who effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. She refused to adopt Western models of government, she supported technological and military reforms and the Self-Strengthening Movement. She supported the principles of the Hundred Days' Reforms of 1898, but feared that sudden implementation, without bureaucratic support, would be disruptive and that the Japanese and other foreign powers would take advantage of any weakness. She placed the Guangxu Emperor, who she thought had tried to assassinate her, under virtual house arrest for supporting radical reformers, publicly executing the main reformers.
Tenement:
a run-down apartment building or slum building occupied by multiple families during the Industrial Revolution.
Slums:
a highly populated urban residential area consisting mostly of closely packed, decrepit housing units in a situation of deteriorated or incomplete infrastructure, inhabited primarily by those in poverty.
Working Class:
the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages, especially in manual or industrial work. What Marx called 'The Proletariat'
White Collar:
a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work. Usually a higher paid employee
Blue Collar:
someone whose profession requires them to perform mostly manual labor. Usually a lower paid employee
Mass Production:
the manufacture of large quantities of standardized products often using assembly lines or automation technology.
Empiricism:
the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, expounded in particular by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.
Thomas Hobbes:
was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. He is best known for his 1651 book 'Leviathan', which expounded an influential formulation of social contract theory.
John Locke:
an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory.
Social Contract:
an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection. Theories of a social contract became popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries among theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects.
Tabula Rasa:
an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals; a clean/blank slate. The human mind, especially at birth, viewed as having no innate ideas.
Urbanization:
refers to the population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, and the ways in which each society adapts to this change.
Karl Marx:
a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. His most famous books were 'Das Kapital' and 'The Communist Manifesto'. Known as the 'Father of Communism'.