AP World History Unit 1 Review

Unit 1: c. 1200-1450

States

  • Definition in AP World History:
    • A territory politically organized under a single government (e.g., The United States, Japan).
  • Unit 1 focuses on how major civilizations built and maintained their states.

Song Dynasty (China)

  • Time period: September - December
  • Main Question: How did the Song Dynasty maintain and justify its rule?
    * Two Methods:
    * Emphasizing Confucianism

Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism:

  • A philosophy that defined Chinese culture from its earliest days.
  • Neo-Confucianism:
    • A revival of Confucianism from the Tang Dynasty.
    • Sought to rid Confucian thought of the influence of Buddhism.
  • Main Ideas:
    • Hierarchical nature of society:
      • Prescribed orders with those above and those below.
      • Citizens submit to the state, women submit to men, juniors submit to elders, children submit to parents.
    • Harmony in society:
      • Achieved when those below defer to those above, and those above care for those below.
    • Filial piety:
      • The necessity and virtue of children obeying and honoring their parents, grandparents, and deceased ancestors.

Role of Women in Song China:

  • Women were relegated to a subordinate position.
  • Legal Rights:
    • Stripped of legal rights; a woman's property became her husband's property.
    • Widowed or divorced women could not remarry.
  • Social Restrictions:
    • Limited access to education.
    • Foot binding (especially in elite circles):
      • Young girls had their toes bent under their feet and bound with cloth until they broke, restricting their ability to walk.
      • Served as a status symbol among the elites.

Expansion of the Imperial Bureaucracy:

  • Bureaucracy defined: A government entity arranged in a hierarchical fashion that carries out the will of the emperor.
  • Jobs in the bureaucracy were earned on the basis of merit by passing a civil service examination based on Confucian classics.
  • Theoretically open to men of all socioeconomic statuses, but in reality, required wealth to devote oneself to study.

Influence on Neighboring Regions

  • Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were influenced by Chinese traditions.
  • Korea adopted a similar civil service examination and Buddhism.
  • China's tactics for maintaining rule spread to neighboring states.

Buddhism in Song China

  • Originated in India and spread to China before the Song Dynasty.
  • Teachings: The Four Noble Truths:
    • Life is suffering.
    • We suffer because we crave.
    • We cease suffering when we cease craving.
    • Live a moral life according to the Eightfold Path.
  • Shared beliefs with Hinduism:
    • Reincarnation (cycle of death and rebirth).
    • The ultimate goal is to dissolve into the oneness of the universe (Nirvana).

Theravada Buddhism

  • Confined the practice of Buddhism to monks in monasteries doing their best to get all enlightened all by their lonely selves.
  • Believed that people outside of monasteries were too occupied with the world to ever really get a bite of that juicy nirvana sandwich.

Mahayana Buddhism

  • Encouraged a broader participation in Buddhist practices.
  • Those who had attained enlightenment (Bodhisattvas) made it their aim to help others along the path to enlightenment as well.

Economy of Song China

  • Commercialization of economy: Production of more goods than consumed, with the excess sold in markets in China and across Eurasia.
  • Significant goods traded: Porcelain and silk.
  • Innovations in Agriculture:
    • Introduction of Champa rice from the Champa Kingdom:
      • Matured early, resisted drought, and could be harvested multiple times a year.
      • Led to significant population growth due to increased food production.
  • Innovations in Transportation:
    • Expansion of the Grand Canal, facilitating trade and communication among China's various regions.

Dar al-Islam

  • Definition: "The house of Islam"; all the places in the world where Islamic faith was the organizing principle of civilizations.
  • Islam related to Judaism and Christianity.
  • Prophet Muhammad: Claimed to be the final prophet in the line of God's messengers. Taught that salvation would be found in righteous action.

Abbasid Caliphate

  • An ethnically Arab empire whose center of power was located in Baghdad.
  • By December, the Abbasid Caliphate had begun to break up and lose its position at the center of the Muslim world.

Seljuk Empire

  • Turkish Muslim Empires
  • Established in the eleventh century in Central Asia by Turkic pastoralists (the Seljuks).
  • The Abbasids needed military help, so they brought in Seljuk warriors.
  • The Seljuks fought with the Abbasids and created an empire all their own.
  • Did not entirely displace the Abbasid Empire (that honor would go to the Mongols).
  • The Seljuks were now wearing the pants of power in the region.

Practices from Former Empires

  • In these new Turkic empires, it was mostly the military that administered the states.
  • Continued the practice of establishing Sharia law as the organizing principle of their legal systems (legal code based on the Quran).

Major Cultural and Scientific Innovations

  • Muslim scholar Nasir al-Din al-Tusi made significant advances in mathematics and even invented trigonometry.
  • Muslim scholars preserved the great works of Greek moral and natural philosophy by translating them into Arabic and making extensive commentaries upon them.
  • The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was a library with a metric buttload of scholarly works established under the Abbasid Empire during what became known as the Golden Age of Islam.

Expansion of Muslim Rule

  • Military Expansion:
    • Establishment of the Seljuk, the Mamluk, and the Delhi sultanates.
  • Traveling Muslim Merchants:
    • Much of North Africa was ruled, which stimulated trade and the movement of merchants throughout Africa.
    • The Empire of Mali gradually converted to Islam for many reasons, but chief among them was the increased access to trade among Dar al-Islam.
  • Missionary Activities of Sufis:
    • They represented a new sect of Islam which emphasized mystical experience and was far more open to adapting itself to local beliefs, which is why it spread so easily.
    • Much of the conversion that occurred in South Asia was the result of Sufi missionaries.

South and Southeast Asia

  • Focus: How belief systems affected their societies and their efforts in state building.

Belief Systems

  • Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam vied for dominance.
South Asia
  • Buddhism:
    • Had been in long decline in the land of its birth.
    • Mainly reduced to monastic communities in the North in Nepal and Tibet
  • Hinduism:
    • Remained the most widespread religion in India.
  • Islam:
    • Became the second most important and influential religion in the region with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate.
    • Became the religion of the elite and then spread throughout Southeast Asia as well.
  • Bhakti Movement:
    • Began in the Southern part of India as an innovation on traditional polytheistic Hinduism.
    • Emphasized devotion to one of the Hindu gods.
    • Became much more attractive to ordinary believers who had grown tired of the complex Hindu hierarchies and sacrifices.
    • Mounted some challenges to the social and gender hierarchies present in Hindu India.
Southeast Asia
  • Mainly Buddhism and Islam

State Building.

South Asia
  • Delhi Sultanate ruled much of Northern India.
  • Hindu Resistance against Muslim intrusion:
    • Rajput Kingdom:
      • A collection of rival and warring Hindu kingdoms that had existed before Muslim rule in Northern India.
    • Vijayanagara Empire (established in 1336):
      • Rose up in the South as a counterpoint to Muslim rule in the North.
      • Established because of a failed attempt by the Delhi sultanate to extend Muslim rule into the South.
Southeast Asia
  • A very diverse set of sea based and land based empires, many of which made a name for themselves through their interactions with China and India.
    • Majapahit Kingdom:
      • Based in Java
      • A Buddhist kingdom and was one of the powerful states in Southeast Asia.
      • Maintained its influence not necessarily through naval power but by controlling sea routes for trade.
      • Began to decline when China started supporting its trading rival, the Sultanate of Malacca.
    • Khmer Empire:
      • Founded as a Hindu kingdom, but at some point the leadership converted to Buddhism.
      • Known for Angkor Wat. It was built as a magnificent Hindu temple, but later after the conversion to Buddhism, they added many Buddhist elements to the structure without removing the Hindu elements.

The Americas

  • Two major centers of civilization: Mesoamerica and the Andean civilization.

Mesoamerica

  • Aztec Empire (founded in 1345 by the Mexica people):
    • Capital city: Tenochtitlan (magnificent and the largest city in The Americas before the Europeans arrived).
    • By 1428, the Aztecs entered an alliance with two other Mesoamerican states and established an empire with an aggressive program of expansion.
    • Administered their vast and growing empire through an elaborate system of tribute states, including enslaved people.
    • Enslaved people from those conquered regions played a large role in Aztec religionists, especially as candidates for human sacrifice, which was a major part of their belief system.

Andean Civilizations

  • Inca Empire (born in the early fourteen hundreds):
    • Stretched nearly across the entire Andean Mountain Range.
    • Incorporated the land and languages of older societies.
    • Developed an elaborate bureaucracy with rigid hierarchies of officials spread throughout the empire to make sure that their conquerors remained firmly under their thumb.
    • Adopted the Mita system, which required all people under their rule to provide labor on state projects like large state farms or mining or military service or state construction projects or whatever.
    • The Aztecs were mostly decentralized in how they ruled while the Inca were highly centralized.

North America

  • Mississippian culture:
    • The first large scale civilization in North America.
    • Grew up around the Mississippi River Valley and focused on agriculture.
    • Large towns dominated smaller satellite settlements politically.
    • Known for their monumental mounds around which their towns were organized.
    • The largest of these is a series of about 80 human built burial mounds, the largest of which is almost about 100 feet tall constructed by the Cahokia people who were part of the culture.

Africa

East Africa

  • Swahili civilization:
    • A series of cities organized around commerce (trading along the East African coast).
    • Grew more influential over time as they became more involved in the Indian Ocean trade.
    • Each of these cities was independent politically, but they shared a common social hierarchy that put the merchant elite above commoner.
    • Deeply influenced by Muslim traders, some of whom settled in the various Swahili states.
    • One of the biggest influence Muslim traders had on these cities was the emergence of a new language, namely Swahili.
    • As a result of Muslim influence, the Swahili states rapidly became Islamic, only increased their integration into the larger world of Islamic trade.

West Africa

  • A series powerful and highly centralized civilizations that grew up, including the Ghana, the Mali, the Songhai empire.
  • The growth of these western civilizations was also driven by trade, which again gave them reason to become Muslim and, you know, they did.
  • It was mostly the elite members and government officials in these empires who converted to Islam while the majority of the population held on to their indigenous beliefs and traditions.
  • Hausa kingdoms were not centralized empires, but rather a series of states were more like the Swahili states in the East.
    • Spoke a common language and shared a common culture among themselves.
    • They were organized and grew powerful through trade, but not sea based trade like in the East.
    • The Hausa kingdoms acted as brokers of the Trans Saharan trade, on which more in the next year.

Great Zimbabwe

  • Capital city was built sometime between December and 1450.
    • It contained massive structures covering almost 200 acres and held a population of about 18.
  • Became another powerful African state that grew thanks to trade.
  • Their economic bread and butter was farming and cattle herding.
  • Rulers and people in Zimbabwe never converted to Islam, but rather maintained their shamanic religion.

Kingdom of Ethiopia

  • Grew and flourished because of trade, especially with other states around the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula.
  • Their religion: Christianity.
  • It was the one Christian state in a sea of African states dominated by Islam and indigenous belief systems.
  • Their power structure was pretty hierarchical with a monarch holding the top spot in various class structures below.

Europe

Belief Systems

  • Dominated by Christianity, but there were two flavors of Christianity in this period. There was Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism.
Eastern Orthodox
  • Byzantine Empire was the Eastern half of what was left of the once massive Roman Empire.
Roman Catholic Church
  • Western Europe had split into a bunch of tiny decentralized states after the fall of the Roman Empire around the fifth century.
  • But Roman Catholicism linked every state together in the region culturally.
  • And with the church's hierarchy of popes and priests and bishops spread through Europe, that meant that the church had significant influence over society and culture and politics across Western Europe.
  • Muslims and Jews also exerted influence in Europe as well.

Political Organization

  • There were no large empires in Europe like there were in the rest of the world.
  • Decentralization and political fragmentation was the political flavor in Europe.
    • Feudalism:
      • A system whereby powerful lords and kings gained allegiance from lesser lords and kings.
      • The vassals, which were the less powerful party, received land from their lords, the more powerful party.
      • And they did that in exchange for military service.
    • Manorialism:
      • A manor is a huge piece of land owned by a lord which was then rented out to peasants who worked the land.
      • And in Europe during this period, all major aspects of life were centered on the man.
      • So peasants were bound to the land of those powerful landowners and they lived there and they, you know, worked there in exchange for the Lord's protection.
      • These working peasants were known as serfs and they were kind of like slaves but kind of not.
      • You see serfs were not the personal property of the landowner, however, they were bound to the land.
      • The center of political and economic power in Europe during this time was in the hands of these land owning lords, which is to say, the nobility.