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AP World History Full Guide
consolidate vs. legitimize
legitimize: ways to show who is in power
consolidate: methods used to transfer power from other groups under one group
Period 1: c. 1200 - c. 1450
Unit 1: The Global Tapestry: State-Building from 1200-1450
Song China maintained its rule through Confucianism and an imperial bureaucracy. Buddhism continued to shape China’s society. In this period, China’s economy flourished.
The Civil Service Exam facilitated a meritocracy in which all men could become government officials.
Buddhism took on new forms as it diffused across Asia. Zen Buddhism formed as a syncretism of Daoism and Buddhism in China.
Confucian ideals like foot binding and filial piety consolidated the Song Dynasty’s rule.
The expansion of the Grand Canal facilitated trade and agricultural growth, along with the expansion to the south, introducing Champa Rice.
As the Abbasid Caliphate declined, new Islamic political entities emerged, engaging in expansion, while facilitating intellectual innovations and transfer.
The Mamluk Sultanate and the Delhi Sultanate were two of the Islamic empires that emerged, differing from the Abbasid Caliphate in that they were of Turkic origin.
Islam spread through military expansion, trade routes, etc.
These new political entities allowed for intellectual innovations (astronomy, geometry) and the flourishing of the arts (architecture, literature) along with intellectual transfer (translations of ancient texts, algebra diffusing from India).
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam deeply influenced state-building in South and Southeast Asia.
The Islamic Delhi Sultanate did not see many conversions among the native Hindus to Islam, and those who did, did it for social mobility.
The Vijayanagara Kingdom was established by two brothers who were born Hindu and converted to Islam for social mobility who were sent South to claim land for the Delhi Sultanate and reclaimed their Hindu roots on their journey, establishing a Hindu kingdom in southern South Asia that rivaled the Delhi Sultanate.
The Bhakti Movement in Hinduism emphasized attachment to a deity and emphasized Hindu faith.
The Srivijaya and Majapahit Kingdoms were Hindu and Buddhist states, respectively, that took advantage of the trade passing through them and prospered.
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The civilizations of the Americas developed strong states, large urban centers, and complex belief systems.
The Mississippian Cahokia civilization built grand mounds for religious or social reasons and had a rigid social hierarchy.
The Aztec Empire had a grand capital, Tenochtitlan, and established a tributary system from the groups they conquered.
African state-building was facilitated through participation in trade networks and religion.
Great Zimbabwe prospered from its strategic position along the Indian Ocean trade routes.
The language of Swahili emerged on the East Coast of Africa as Arabic merchants interacted with the native Africans as a syncretism of Bantu and Arabic with elements of Farsi.
When Christianity spread to Ethiopia, it became isolated and syncretized with the native African cultures present, becoming distinct from other types of Christianity.
African state-building rarely included centralized empires; it mostly consisted of communities based on kinship ties.
State-building in Europe was characterized by religious belief, feudalism, and decentralized monarchies.
Most educated men were affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, and as the dominant religion, Christianity shaped European society.
Political systems were decentralized, and kings distributed land through the feudal system.
Locally, the manorial system structured society.
Unit 2: Networks of Exchange: Cultural Diffusion and Interaction from 1200-1450
New innovations expanded the scope of trade routes.
Innovations focused on navigation like the compass, saddle, lateen sail, and astrolabe helped merchants travel along trade routes.
Innovations focused on trade like caravanserai, paper money, and bills of exchange helped merchants with trade in itself.
States that promoted innovation and trade grew in importance.
States like Song China, the Mongol Empire, the Majapahit Empire, and more states took advantage of trade and became extremely important and relevant.
States understood that making their state desirable to others would maintain their relevancy.
Song China expanded its university program at the cost of decreasing its military budget to educate the upcoming members of the bureaucracy better, which was a success.
The Mongols created the ultimate trading empire from 1200-1450.
The Mongols utilized new innovations to spread their influence, most military innovations, like the cannon and portable towers.
Although they initially disturbed trade routes, they later united the Silk Road in Pax Mongolica, promoting innovation and being so feared that no one committed crimes in the empire.
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Cultural diffusion and technological exchange brought states out of the Medieval Era.
As cultures interact, history moves forward, and we enter a new era where technology has diffused throughout Afro-Eurasia and states will use them differently.
Period 2: c. 1450 - c. 1750
Unit 3: Land-Based Empires: States Undergo Social and Political Changes from 1450-1750
Various land-based empires developed and expanded from 1450 to 1750, most significantly through the use of gunpowder weapons.
From its humble beginnings, the Ottoman Empire expanded rapidly through the use of gunpowder weapons. The Janissaries, enslaved Christian boys who were converted to Islam and trained in military tactics, were very willing to use gunpowder weapons as an elite fighting force for the Ottomans.
The Safavid Empire, made into a Shi’ite dynasty, was put at odds with other Islamic empires because of the divide between Shi’as and Sunnis. This eventually led to conflict between the Safavid Empire and the Mughal Empire, which was facilitated by them both utilizing gunpowder weapons.
The Mughal Empire displaced the Delhi Sultanate utilizing gunpowder empires and expanded under Akbar, a very tolerant administrator of the Mughal Empire, which led to their expansion as well.
The Qing Dynasty of China was established after the Manchu overthrow of the Ming Dynasty. The Manchu rulers differed from the Han Chinese majority, which caused high tensions between the government and the people.
This caused rivalries and conflicts between states as they expanded.
The Safavid-Mughal Conflict was a result of conflicting territorial ambitions and religious beliefs. This rivalry led to several wars over decades.
The Songhai-Mughal Conflict occurred when the Moroccans invaded the rich Songhai Empire that prospered off the Trans-Saharan trade network. The Moroccans were able to do this because of their gunpowder weapons.
Rulers of land-based empires gained power by establishing bureaucracies sponsoring the creation of art, centralizing tax collection, and developing large militaries.
The Ottoman devshirme system helped staff the imperial bureaucracy with highly trained enslaved Christians.
In the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, samurai served the government and maintained peace in Japan.
European monarchs legitimized power through the Divine Right of Kings.
Louis XXIV used architecture to legitimize rule in the Palace of Versailles, forcing aristocrats to live there and controlling them.
The Qing Dynasty used portraits of the emperor surrounded by books to signify Confucian wisdom to convince the people that he was a legitimate ruler of China.
The Mughal Empire used the zamindar system of elite landowners, or zamindars, who were granted authority to tax peasants who were living on their land on behalf of the imperial government.
Belief systems played different roles in land-based empires. In some cases, shared beliefs bound people together. In other cases, various beliefs caused conflict.
In the 16th century, there was a major fracture in European Christianity known as the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther complained about the ills of the church in his 95 Theses, and his ideas began to spread rapidly across Europe, causing a major split.
Rulers across Europe either stayed Catholic or imposed Protestantism on their subjects.
This led to various religious wars until 1648.
The Catholic Church responded with the Counter-Reformation, introducing reforms and addressing some of the corruption being criticized. However, the Council of Trent reaffirmed ancient doctrines and continued previous Catholic beliefs, making the split between Protestant religions and Catholicism permanent.
The Sunni-Shi’a split intensified in this period as earlier illustrated in the Safavid-Mughal Conflict.
The interaction of belief systems also produced new belief systems.
Sikhism, a syncretism of Hindu and Islamic doctrines, continued previous Hindu and Islamic beliefs but was also distinct and different from the two religions, shown in their beliefs and practices.
Unit 4: Transoceanic Interactions: The Social, Political, and Cultural Implications of the Age of Exploration and the First Wave of Imperialism
New and updated maritime technology facilitated transoceanic trade and the development of sea-based empires.
Several maritime technologies, borrowed and updated, like the astrolabe, magnetic compass, lateen sail, and more meant that European states could build their maritime empires.
New ship designs like the caravel, the carrack, and the fluyt were used for different purposes and facilitated trade, discovery, and conquest.
European state-sponsored exploration led to a rapid expansion of trade and trans-Atlantic contact with the Americas.
States sponsored exploration for wealth building, proselytization, and competition with other states.
The Portuguese established a trading-post empire across the coast of Africa of South Asia, made of small, strategically placed trading posts to monopolize the spice trade.
The Spanish discovery of the Americas led to an increase in the interest in trans-Atlantic trade, causing countless states to send out explorers to find a sea route to Asia.
The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of animals, plants, foods, and diseases from Europe to the Americas, and vice versa.
Crops like maize and potatoes were brought to Europe from the Americas and crops like wheat and rice entered the Americas from Europe. Later, African slaves brought okra and rice to the Americas.
This caused populations to expand their diets to become healthier and for their life spans to increase.
Animals like turkeys went from the Americas to Europe and Europeans introduced horses into the Americas, changing how native peoples hunted.
Smallpox, a devastating disease that the Europeans had been immune to, diffused to the Americas and ravaged their populations along with measles and malaria, causing the Great Dying.
Portugal’s Brazillian colony focused on cash crops to be exported to Europe because of the demand for sugarcane. Originally, indigenous people were forced to farm, but they succumbed to sickness or escaped because they knew the land, causing an increased demand for African slaves in the plantations of Portuguese Brazil.
With Transoceanic contact established, European states established empires fueled by mercantilist economic policy and coerced labor systems.
As the Portuguese established their trading post empire in Africa, some Africans perceived them as intruders. Some African kingdoms like the Ashanti Empire grew as a result of contact with Europeans.
As European maritime empires grew, they took a mercantilist point of view. This point of view viewed all the wealth in the world as finite, and that they needed to have the biggest amount of the wealth. These policies consisted of exporting as much as possible and importing as little as possible along with high tariffs and the establishment of many colonies.
In the Americas, agriculture was established as the primary way to build and accumulate wealth, which facilitated coerced labor from the indigenous people.
However, as indigenous Americans fell ill from European diseases and easily escaped the plantations built on their land, demand for African labor increased. Africans were either violently captured in slave raids or negotiated with local kingdoms like the Kingdom of the Kongo. Africans went on a grueling journey across the Pacific Ocean called the Middle Passage and were then put to work on plantations in the Americas.
The development of maritime empires over time significantly changed the economies in which they were established.
The British set up trading posts in India and took advantage of religious tensions by inserting themselves and politically influencing the governments present until they practically controlled the entire Indian subcontinent.
The Aztec and Inca Empires quickly collapsed when Spain attacked them because the soldiers there were ravaged by disease.
All the colonization was causing tension; sometimes the tension was solved by war and other times the tension was solved by diplomacy as it was between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
The Spanish introduced a new social hierarchy, especially in the coercive encomienda system, in which encomenderos coerced indigenous people to work on the plantations, as well as in the later hacienda system.
When the Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean trade, they used their military superiority to dominate trade in the region and disrupter trade severely. Even with this point, the trade network continued to operate as it always had at a moderate degree.
Joint-stock companies, where many groups invested in companies with limited liability, like the DEIC and the BEIC facilitated colonization and exploration with a low risk to investors.
The economic disputes that arose as this change takes place developed many rivalries.
As a result of religions spreading into new territories, they either syncretized with the local belief systems or caused conflict.
As states imposed their cultural, political, and economic will on various colonized and enslaved people, resistance occurred.
Imperialism sparked many resistance movements from local populations.
In the Mughal Empire, the Maratha Rebellion began among the Maratha warriors who believed the Mughals were invading their Hindu beliefs. This led to the replacement of the Mughal Empire with the Maratha Empire.
The Pueblo Revolts in Spanish North America involved the Pueblo and the Apache Indians in that region that grew tired of the Spanish trying to force their conversion. They expelled them for a time but the Spanish eventually returned.
Social categories, roles, and practices were both maintained and underwent significant change during this period.
We saw a continuity of social categories, roles, and practices in Qing China. They retained many Chinese institutions like reliance on the bureaucracy and the civil service exam. However, the restrictive policies against the Han Chinese caused excessive turmoil.
The casta system demonstrates how social categories, roles, and practices changed in the Americas. This social hierarchy developed as a result of the Spanish occupation of the Americas and was imposed on the indigenous people based on ancestry and race.
Period 3: c. 1750 - c. 1900
Unit 5: Revolutions: The Social and Political Revolutions Caused by Industrialization and the Enlightenment
The Enlightenment and nationalism fueled revolutions around the Atlantic world.
In this era, the idea that the government owes something to the people and that the people give them power began to surface. This idea of a social contract between the people and a government began to spark revolutions as people began to believe they could choose their own government.
The idea of natural rights was shared by most philosophers that believed that the basic social contracts with the government need to protect the basic inalienable rights of each person (usually just land-owning white men). This also led to revolutions in authoritarian, oppressive states.
One of the main ideas of the Enlightenment was empiricist thinking, which led to many new viewpoints like capitalism. The capitalist ideas surfacing along with the upcoming industrialization occurring led to significant economic growth for many states.
The American Revolution was the first important revolution. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith’s A Wealth of Nations was published, as the basis of capitalism. The three branches of government were radical changes as they did not have a monarchy and had balanced power. As the social hierarchy continued the same way, it was not the most radical revolution, but it was a big change and a step in the right direction.
This led to the French Revolution in many ways because it made them go broke and because it inspired the people to revolt. It was a moderately radical revolution, and Lafayette’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (inspired by the Declaration of Independence) dictated the right the French people wanted from the king.
The Haitian Revolution was the most radical revolution, executed by enslaved black people of African descent overthrowing their enslavers and creating the first black republic in world history. It was led by an enslaved man and partly inspired by the French Revolution because while the French (Haiti’s colonial owner) was undergoing a revolution and distracted, the enslaved population had an opportunity to overthrow the colonial government.
When Napoleon conquered Spain and the King was imprisoned, New Spain, which was very dependent on the King’s rule, was left in the hands of the Creoles who decided to make informal governments to rule while the King was in prison. When the King of Spain was freed, creoles like Simon Bolivar did not want to return the power to the King. This sparked many revolutions in Latin America.
Simon Bolivar’s Letter From Jamaica described why the Creoles were rising up and was a semi-Enlightened document.
The Latin American independence movements were the least radical; they just wanted to eliminate the authoritarian rule of the King upon them. Not much else was changed, therefore they were relatively conservative compared to the Haitian and American Revolutions.
Across the world, these revolutions caused many nationalist independence movements like the unification of Germany, the Maori Wars, the Balkans fighting Ottomans for self-rule, and more.
Industrialization began in England and spread quickly to young states who actively promoted industrial growth.
The Industrial Revolution started in England because of access to waterways (rivers, canals); access to coal, iron, and timber; urbanization; increasing agricultural productivity; accumulation of capital; and legal protection of private property.
It easily spread to newly independent states because of the constitutions giving people the right to private property.
Industrialization is the building of factories so that a product is produced in one spot with increased specialization of labor.
The steam engine and later internal combustion engine show how the harnessing of fossil fuels for energy in transportation vehicles. (ships, trains, cars)
It spread to states like the US, Germany, and later Japan.
Western economies shifted from mercantilism to free-market policies in their own states while expanding their economic influence around the globe.
Getting rid of government oversight and leaving the economy to free markets allowed the economy to grow extremely large in states like England. This is why mercantilist states like Spain and Portugal declined in this industrialization.
Many industrialized states actively promote less government but build a massive empires abroad with fewer liberties than those in the European mainland to gain the resources they need at home. This shows how the growth of the free market was mostly in Europe and didn’t really spread to the colonial economies during this period.
New innovations like the telegraph, railroad, etc. fostered growth across the industrialized states.
Cecil Rhodes shows the new wealth in this economy and how now wealth was not defined by the aristocracy and anyone could make something of themselves.
Many long-established governments were often wary of modernizing.
Modernization: Industrializing, Enlighting, and Nationalizing. (What England is doing)
Older land-based empires like Qing China, the Mughal and Ottoman Empires, and more were so big and old that they were slow to adapt and would not benefit from drastic changes in the economy, which was a barrier to the modernization of those places.
In Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate shut themselves off and isolated themselves to protect their culture. In the late-1800s, Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open their borders and the Japanese responded in a united way. This led to the Meiji Restoration, getting rid of the shogun and restoring the emperor’s power, rapidly modernizing Japan.
Industrialization brought rapid social change and also calls for reform.
Industrialization and urbanization raised the quality of living in industrialized states; however, it increases at different rates for each social class.
The breakup of the traditional family structure, especially in the lower class, had devastating effects.
The women in the middle class developed a cult of domesticity, and then people like Susan B. Anthony began to discuss feminist ideas.
The ideas of Karl Marx surfaced as he predicted that the proletariat would unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie. This led to workers’ rights movements and socialist movements in various states, inspired by Marx.
Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization: The Social, Political, and Cultural Implications of the Second Wave of Imperialism
Various ideologies contributed to the growing development of imperialism in the period 1750-1900.
There were various social, political, economic, and cultural rationales for imperialism like social Darwinism, white superiority, nationalism, competition with other states, access to raw materials, access to new markets, and proselytization.
Imperial states employed different means of consolidating power in their empires and expanding their empires.
Non-state-to-state control of colonies like the Congo’s ownership by King Leopold to being directly owned by the state shows the consolidation of power.
New imperial powers replaced old imperial powers like how the US took the Philippines from Spain.
The Scramble for Africa was the situation in which European powers raced to claim territory in Africa, which caused many tensions between these states, this prompted Otto von Bismarck to assemble the Berlin Conference, which settled the borders and disregarded the ethnic groups already present.
The establishment of colonies for different uses (settler colonies/British NZ, French Algeria, penal colonies/British Australia) helped consolidate power.
The new wave of imperialism during this period led to new waves of resistance from colonized peoples.
Direct resistance, as seen in the Peruvian rebellion led by Tupac Amaru, was a direct backlash against the government.
The creation of new Balkan states in SE Europe shows how nationalism in the Balkans inspired them to fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Religious-inspired rebellions like the Ghost Dance movement or the Xhosa Cattle-Killing movement were motivated by religious and cultural reasons like trying to make people convert to Christianity.
The growing need for imperial powers to extract raw materials and increase the food supply transformed the global economy.
Many farmers began to grow cash crops to export them and make money.
Colonial economies are being transformed to serve urban centers in imperial hubs and not the needs of the people that live there.
The world becomes interconnected as the colonies in which raw materials are taken become the markets for manufactured materials.
Industrialized states and businesses within those states practiced economic imperialism primarily in Asia and Latin America.
Economic imperialism: When a county, usually coercively, has significant economic power over another country.
When the Chinese opposed the trade of opium into China, the Opium Wars commenced. These led to a British victory and the opening of Chinese ports. This shows how Britain dominated them economically, not politically. Later, China was divided into spheres of influence in which states had exclusive trading right in their sphere.
Various environmental and economic factors contributed to patterns of migration between 1750 and 1900.
People moved for economic opportunities, and they would encounter new labor systems like indentured servitude, contract labor, and more.
People moved because of poor conditions in their home countries. For example, the Irish Potato Famine prompted Irish migration to the US.
People moved by taking advantage of new transportation technologies and usually faced discrimination in their receiving countries.
Period 4: c. 1900 - present
Unit 7: Global Conflict: The World Wars and Their Economic Effects
Internal and external factors contributed to significant change in various states across the world after 1900
Russia’s reluctance to expand social liberties, the loss of the Crimean War, and more led to the rise of the Bolsheviks and the transformation into the USSR.
Ethnic tension in Qing China, the constant danger of famine, low revenue, threats from Western industrialization, and more led to the overthrow of the Qing by Sun-Yat Sen.
World War I was caused by a combination of militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism.
Militarism: the build-up of military weapons being mainly unused by countries tempted them to use them.
Alliances: the alliance systems of the Triple Entente and the Triple Axis stacked against one another causes a chain reaction.
Imperialism: the competition for colonies and dominance caused rivalries between states like in the Scramble for Africa
Nationalism: pride in national identity instilled ethnocentrist beliefs in people.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the spark that lit the flame because of the context of all the causes.
Governments used a variety of strategies to fight World War I including propaganda to mobilize their home fronts and new weapons technology on the battlefield.
World War I was known as a total war in which each fighting country was leveraging all of its assets in dedication to the war.
By using propaganda, governments kept the people at home motivated to the war effort.
This war was fought by new technologies which made it the deadliest war in history at the time. Tanks, submarines, poison gas, and trench warfare were among these tactics and how this war was fought.
The war ended with the Treaty of Versailles.
Following World War I, governments began to take a more prominent role in their nations’ economies.
The economy suffered extremely after World War I and governments made many efforts to stimulate the economy.
The Great Depression facilitated governments to be more involved in the economy. FDR’s New Deal was meant to rescue the US from the Depression.
Germany’s economy was ruined after the War which led to rampant hyperinflation. This led to the rise of fascism in the Nazi party, seizing reparation payments solicited by the Treaty of Versailles.
Stalin’s five-year plans were supposed to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union through the collectivization of agriculture and more, but it was a total failure.
World War II was caused by the unsustainable peace agreement of World War I, the economic crisis, and the rise of fascist regimes, most notably, Nazi Germany.
The Treaty of Versailles punished Germany severely in that it stated that Germany was completely responsible for World War I and had to pay reparations.
The economic crisis facilitated the rise of ethnocentric, fascist regimes in Italy and Germany.
Britain and France’s appeasement policy with Germany just fed into Hitler claiming more land, but Germany invading Poland set off the ultimate spark and World War II began.
World War II was another total war, and totalitarian and democratic nations deployed all their nation’s resources to fight and win.
The United States’ incredible industry (ammunition manufacturing, etc) facilitated its fast mobilization.
Totalitarian states like the USSR and Germany relied on unproductive forced labor, especially in concentration camps, for their manufacturing.
Firebombing was used by the Allies to cause fires and blow up things and atomic bombs were used to force Japan to surrender. These killed millions of civilians.
The rise of extremist groups led to the attempted destruction of certain populations through genocide or ethnic violence.
The Nazi Holocaust was influenced by Hitler’s Final Solution principle, which led to concentration camps where Jews were either forced to do labor or were killed.