AP World History Cram Finale Flashcards

AP World Cram Finale

  • Introduction

    • The session is a Fiveable cram finale for AP World History.
    • The content covers all four major time periods in the AP World course.
    • Exam strategies and essay tips will be discussed, especially towards the end.
    • Practice questions will be embedded throughout.
    • The Q&A discussion thread can be used for clarifying questions.

Geography and Regions

  • World Regions (according to the College Board)

    • The Americas: North America, Latin America, and The Caribbean.
    • Africa: Entire continent.
    • Asia: The Middle East, East Asia, South Asia.
    • Europe: Western Europe, Eastern Europe.
    • Oceana: Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific Islands, and the island of New Guinea.

  • Subregions and Overlaps

    • North America overlaps with Latin America throughout Central America.
    • Egypt is considered part of the Middle East.
    • The Middle East and Central Asia have some overlap with Eastern Europe and parts of Central Asia.
    • Central Asia overlaps with South Asia and East Asia.

  • Test Tip: Be as specific as possible in all written answers.

Major Themes in AP World History (SPICE T)

  • SPICE T is an acronym: Social, Political, Interactions (Environment), Cultural, Economics, Technology.

Social

  • How do people interact with each other as individuals or in groups?

    • Class (social class or social status).
    • Race.
    • Gender.
    • Family structure.

Political

  • How do people or states gain and exercise power?

    • State = Country (autonomous political unit).

    • Type and structure of government.

    • Administration and governance.

    • Authority figures and groups.

Interactions (with the Environment)

  • Humans affect their environments, and environments affect humans.

    • Consequences of human-environment interactions (short-term, long-term, intended, unintended).
    • Demographics (population characteristics).
    • Migration.
    • Resources.

Culture

  • How do people develop and express their beliefs, identities, and values?

    • Religion or belief systems.
    • Art and architecture.
    • Science.
    • Language.
    • Writing systems, record keeping systems, or oral traditions.

Economics

  • How do people produce, exchange, and consume goods and services?

    • Money.
    • Labor (free vs. coerced).
    • Production methods (by hand, factories).
    • Trade and commerce (access to goods, trade routes).

Technology

  • What do people create to increase their efficiency, comfort, or security?

    • Innovations, inventions, physical technology.
    • Ideas and knowledge to increase efficiency, comfort, or security.

Studying with Themes

  • Organizing themes helps to think and feel confident.
  • Having connections between different places within a specific theme is powerful.

Time Period 1: Post-Classical (c. 1200-1450)

  • Three Big Concepts

    • Empires and states in Afro-Eurasia and The Americas (continuity, innovation, and diversity).
    • Beliefs and practices of belief systems/religions developed before this period continue to shape societies.
    • Expansion of states and networks of exchange leads to transfer of goods, ideas, and culture across Afro-Eurasia.

States and Empires in East Asia

  • China (Song Dynasty)

    • Continuities: Confucianism (social harmony, hierarchy, imperial examinations).
    • Blending of Taoist and Buddhist ideas.
    • Social hierarchy: patriarchal society, foot binding among elite women.
    • China's influence on surrounding regions (Vietnam, Korea, Japan).

The Middle East

  • Islam's Spread and Influence

    • Belief system emerged from Arabian Peninsula.
    • Spread through conquest and trade.
    • Dar al-Islam: shared community of Muslims.
    • Interaction between regions due to shared beliefs.
    • Governance and States
    • Abbasid Caliphate.
    • Delhi Sultanate in South Asia.
    • Conversion of rulers in North Africa, West Africa, Mali, Spain, and Portugal.

South and Southeast Asia

  • Influence of Diverse Religious Traditions

    • Islam Spread from the Middle East.
    • Hinduism: Emerges out of India (Duty, Caste System, Karma, Reincarnation or Rebirth).
    • Buddhism: Rejects Caste System (Getting rid of desire, Eightfold Path, Enlightenment and Nirvana)
    • Universalizing religions (Buddhism, Islam, Christianity).

The Americas

  • Mesoamerica and South America

    • Aztec Empire (Mesoamerica)
    • Inca Empire (Andes Mountains)
    • Polytheistic religious systems.

Africa

  • Emergence and Development

    • Sub-Saharan Africa
    • West Africa, Mali Empire (Mansa Musa, Islam, gold deposits)
    • East Africa, Swahili city-states (trade along Indian Ocean).

Europe

  • Political fragmentation/decentralization.

    • Small states, feudal states
    • Culturally unified (Christianity)
    • Eastern Europe: Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus'
      • Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
    • Western Europe: Roman Catholic Christianity.
    • Patriarchal society (less political and economic power for women, but women always worked)

The Mongols

  • Largest Land Empire in the World

    • Nomadic people in Central and East Asia.
    • Conquests into East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
    • Reestablishment of overland trade across Eurasia.
    • Religious tolerance.
    • Diversity in political rule.
    • Fragmentation after Chinggis Khan's death.
    • Legacy: connecting people, large presence.

Trade Networks and Exchanges

  • Major Trade Networks in Afro-Eurasia

    • Silk Roads (overland trade from East Asia to the Middle East & Eastern Europe)
      • Textiles, porcelain
      • Paper money, caravanserai (stopping points for caravans)
    • Indian Ocean System (maritime trade network)
      • East African Swahili states, Arabs, Indians, Southeast Asians, Chinese
      • Knowledge and technology (sailing, monsoon winds, compass, astrolabe, Latin sails)
      • Textiles, sugar, crops (bananas in East Africa).
    • Trans-Saharan Trade Networks (West Africa to Mediterranean Basin and the Middle East)
      • Gold, salt, enslaved people
      • Spread of Islam

  • The Black Plague spread in the 1300s, emerging probably in Central Asia, and spreading along overland trade routes into China, as well as into the Middle East. And then eventually into Europe through sea trade along the Mediterranean moving from Central Asia into into China as well as into the Middle East.

  • Unintended Consequences of Trade

    • Spread of disease.
    • Travelers (Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Marjorie Kemp).

  • The Americas: Regional Networks

    • Loosely interactive web stretching from the Great Lakes to the Andes.
    • Mississippi River trade system.
    • Southwest United States overland system.
    • Andean trade system.
    • Limited trade between the Andes and Mesoamerica.

Time Period 2: Early Modern (1450-1750)

  • Four Key Concepts

    • Empires expanded--over land and overseas. Innovation meets tradition when ruling, consolidate power-- centralized authority. Legitimize: justified right to be in charge. Expansion led to significant resistance.
    • Connection of Western and Eastern Hemispheres causes development of truly global trade networks. Significant effects on economies, populations, environment (Columbian Exchange, Atlantic Trading System).
    • New social structures and hierarchies. Some states accommodated diversity, others assimilated or imposed rigid hierarchies.
    • Europeans were not the dominant force in trade or politics outside of The Americas. This is particularly important because it's a confusion point that sometimes students have about this time period.

Expanding Empires: Key Vocabulary

  • Gunpowder Empires: Empires that utilized new technologies like gunpowder-based cannons to facilitate their expansion.
  • Legitimize: Justifying their right to be in charge.
  • Consolidate: Bringing power under one roof.
  • Rivalries: Political, religious, and cultural rivalries.

Key Empires

  • Japan (Tokugawa Shogunate).

    • Resistance from outside influence.
    • Distinctly Japanese empire.

  • Dutch Empire.

    • Territory in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Spice Islands).
    • Focus on spice trade, colonial abuses, coerced labor.

  • Ming and Qing Dynasties (China).

    • Expansive overland empire.
    • Ethnic Chinese nationalism in government (Han Chinese).
    • Zheng He voyages.

  • Russian Empire.

    • Expanded from Eastern Europe across Northern Asia to the East Coast.
    • Expansion through military conquest and economics (fur traders).
    • Assimilation of indigenous peoples.

  • Mughal Empire (South Asia).

    • Founded by Turkic invaders.
    • Expanded utilizing tradition and innovation (gunpowder).
    • Rulers were Muslims, but the majority population was Hindu.

  • Safavid Empire (Persia).

    • Muslim empire, Shia Islam.
    • Political rivalry with Sunni Ottoman Empire.

  • Ottoman Empire.

    • Expanded with innovations.
    • Consolidated power, Devshirme system (recruited Christian boys as soldiers and bureaucrats).

  • Songhai Empire (West Africa).

    • Islamic empire, promoted Islam.
    • Land-based, controlling territory and people.

  • The Americas

    • Aztec and Inca Empires overthrown by Spanish conquerors.
    • Spanish Empire in North America, Mesoamerica, Latin America.
    • Portuguese claims in Southern Africa and Brazil.
    • British and French claims in North America.

Cultural and Belief System Changes

  • Europe: Protestant Reformation (split between Catholic and Protestant Christian churches).

    • Political and cultural fragmentation, greater missionary efforts.

  • Mughal Empire: Emergence of Sikhism (blend of Islam and Hinduism).

  • Religious Syncretism: Blending of beliefs and traditions between groups.

    • Voodoo and Santeria in The Caribbean.

Transoceanic Connections

  • Technology (shipbuilding, navigation).
  • Voyages sponsored by European governments.
  • The Indian Ocean System, the biggest transformation that Europeans brought to trade in the Indian Ocean, was putting guns on their ships.

Labor Systems

  • Coerced or forced labor.
  • Transatlantic slave trade.
  • The Inca Mita system was just co-opted by Europeans into a system that just required labor for European either plantation owners, landowners, or mining operations.
  • Conditions of enslaved Africans were brutal.

Elites and Social Structures

  • New classes of elites emerged.
  • Latin America: Race-based hierarchy, Creoles.
  • Dehumanization based on race.

Columbian Exchange

  • Transfer of goods, people, and diseases across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • Environmental impact (migration, transfer of plants and animals).
  • Population changes and racial makeup (Europeans and Africans).

Resistance

  • Expanded empires encountered resistance.
  • Refusal to allow conquering empires to take land.
  • Resistance from within expanding empires.

Expanding Empires: Key Vocabulary

  • Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer of goods, people, and diseases across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • Religious syncretism is syncretism is the blending of beliefs and traditions from two or more different groups.
  • State-led industrialization Government is heavily involved in the industrializing sector.
  • Economic imperialism is this time refers to one country's where investors are benefiting from other places without those places essentially becoming colonies. So if here if you looked in the lower left, the pore Buenos Aires in Argentina. It's a classic example.
  • Creoles are People of European descent born in The Americas.

Time Period 3: Contemporary (1750-Present)

  • Four Key Concepts

    • Advances in science and technology.
    • Political and social order - Revolutions, decolonization.
    • A worldwide conflict during the world war. World war ii, fascism, communism. etc.
    • the way the states reacted with each other. An institution of global associations.

Technology's Influence

  • World War I Technology: field artillery, machine guns, poison gas, submarines.
  • Connectivity: radio, the Internet.
  • Energy Technology: petroleum, nuclear power. It also solves problems of distance. What people could connect.
  • Demographics: People size of population demographics. The data by humans population age nationality, occupation. That's gonna be data about people. Global migration, fertility rates go down.
  • Green Revolution: chemical fertilizers, pesticides, seeds.
  • Demographics: birth control, smaller, increased living in better facilities.
  • Environment.

The World Wars

  • World War I (sides: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire vs. British, French, Russian Empires).

    • Global conflict due to colonial troops.
    • Causation is known as militarism, nationalism, and imperialism.
    • Total war: devotion of society's resources; targeting of civilians.

  • World War II, similar to world war 1, but with even more mobilization.

  • Mass atrocities: Holocaust (racial), Armenian genocide (culture), Khmer Rouge (communist ideology).

Revolutions

  • Russian Revolution (during World War I), and it was not only a revolution in Russia that overthrew monarchies, there was also a revolution in China as well.

Communism in China

  • Chinese Communist Party. Organized starting in 1921 and came to power after Civil War. They were involved in peasant communities, guerrilla warfare, which became a popular factor. A massive campaign of economic and social changes led by the Chinese Communist Party to transform China from a primarily agrarian economy into a modern communist society.

Labor Systems and Work

  • Communism: the state controls all means of production, a command economy. However that also has an authoritarian government. The great depression causes World War. One of the greatest parts of the story is it leads to racism through military governments. Because for years and, it's pretty hard not to work it really doesn't have such mass movements.

The Cold War

  • Ideological struggle (capitalism vs. communism). The great parallel there is to the fact. There was political party Civil War involved.
  • Great power competition (The US and Soviet UN ion were. And you said you you went to have those new new leaders in that way.
  • Key is about that, it's to have all that. New leaders of a great state.
  • Nuclear proliferation is the spread of weapons. Is so so so yeah there was for that. What the for because, you. No. Can. Was on this year. No.

Decolonization and Post-Colonialism

  • Key nationalist leaders (Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, Gandhi or Mohandas, Nehru, Jawaharlal and the list could go on for forever. So what you have those new new. And the list is just the whole team is that
  • In a war. So yeah it means that. Oh by but. Oh not what? So new this to can that okay. Also
  • Different Ways of Independence: Negotated, civil war, economic
  • Nationalism: That those the great, So what about is yeah? And then the to for that is those just
  • Economic Challenges, there weren't complex economies in areas and because it benefited other groups over local ones. It could not expand from there.
  • Government involvement is used to solve issues like poverty and hunger. This led to the increase of socialism because of what the U.S, what those European countries left back.
    • Decolonization is Important
  • Population Displacement, the process of people having to be internally or externally displaced to other areas. So so oh by but, oh not what's. To New so yeah in those okay in? Those just. It meant to do any.

Globalization

  • Global Connections, more communication is used and you have this interconnected web.
    • Political. UN, (United Nations). They are a global party member involved from all over.
    • Global Economic Connections- To promote trade, economic system growth as there's an equal playing ground everywhere.