AP World History Notes
Unit 1:
Time period for unit 1 is 1200-1450
The main idea of the unit is to drop into the major civilizations in the world and understand how they are building and maintaining their states.
State: A territory that is politically organized under a single government
States are key in unit 1 of AP world
Song China
In China the Song dynasty took place from 960-1279
How did the Song dynasty maintain and justify its rule?
Maintain: How did they stay in charge
Justify: Run their state
How Song China maintained and justified their rule
Confucianism:
Confucianism was a philosophy that defined Chinese culture from its earliest days.
Confucianism fell into the background during dynasties before the Song
The Song Dynasty carried over a revival of Confucianism from the Tang Dynasty which came right before the Song.
Because it was a revival of an old philosophy we call it neo Confucianism, neo meaning new.
The newness of this revival also meant that there was some change in Confucianism itself.
The main change in Confucianism was that neo Confucian sought to rid Confucian thought of the influence of Buddhism which had influenced it significantly in the prior centuries.
The main idea in Confucianism is that human society is hierarchical by nature, which means that there is a set order to everything. In order to achieve harmony in society, those below needed to look up to those above and follow their example, while those above needed to care properly for those below.
Filial piety was a core idea in Confucianism which emphasized the necessity and virtue of children obeying and honoring their parents, grandparents, and decreased ancestors.
Confucianism was a powerful philosophy and bound Chinese society together because everyone had their place and everyone had their role.
Within the Confucian hierarchy it's important to know about the place of women. With the revival of Confucianism in Song China, women were relegated to the subordinate position. Specifically, women were stripped of legal rights and endured social restriction. In turns of legal rights, a woman's property became her husband's property or if she was widowed or divorced, she could not remarry. In terms of social restrictions they only had access to limited education and women in more elite circles endured foot binding. Foot binding was when girls had their toes bent under their feet and bound with cloth until they broke, and that meant they couldn’t walk easily or not at all. They did this because it was a status symbol among the elite illustrating that a wife that couldn’t walk, couldn’t work and if you were healthy enough your life didn’t have to work. So it was a symbol of wealth.
Expansion of the imperial bureaucracy
A Bureaucracy is a government entity arranged in a hierarchical fashion that carries out the will of the emperor. Basically the emperor makes the rules and then the bureaucracy is made up of the people who make sure that everyone follows the rules.
During the Song dynasty the imperial bureaucracy grew in scope and helped them to maintain their rule. This occurred because in order to get a job in the bureaucracy, eligible men had to take and pass a civil service exam, which was heavily based Confucian classics and the foundational texts in the Confucian philosophy.
The reason that the civil service exams were important was because employing the system bureaucratic jobs were earned on the basis of merit, that meant the most qualified people got the job and not people in who had power.
Theoretically, the civil service exam was open to men of all socioeconomic statuses, but in reality, to study for this exam required a man to be rich enough to not work and devote himself to study.
Chinese traditions influenced neighboring regions like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc.
For example in Korea they used a similar civil service exam and they also adopted Buddhism.
The main point is the tactics that China used to maintain and legitimize their rule spread and influenced neighboring states.
Buddhism
Buddhism originated in India and then spread to China long before the Song dynasty.
Buddhism is centered around what are known as the Four Noble Truths which are:
Life is suffering
We suffer because we crave
We cease suffering when we cease craving
The Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering and craving
Buddhism shares some beliefs with Hinduism
The cycle of birth and death and reincarnation
The ultimate goal which is to dissolve into the oneness of the universe called nirvana in Buddhism
It's important to know how Buddhism changed from its original form as it spread into new areas.
New Branches of Buddhism:
In Sri Lanka Theravada emerged and confined the practice of Buddhism to monks and monasteries, doing their best to get all enlightened by themselves. They did this because they believed that people outside of monasteries, like regular people, were too occupied with the world to ever achieve Nirvana.
In East Asia there was Mahayana Buddhism, which encouraged a larger participation in Buddhist practices. The Bodhisattvas or those who had attained enlightenment made it their aim to help others along the path to enlightenment.
What is most important to remember is that these new forms of Buddhism arose as this belief system interacted with various Asian cultures.
Economy
Song rulers inherited the prosperity and beginnings of population growths from the previous Tang and Sui dynasties, and so Song rulers only increased their prosperity and made way for a population explosion.
Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the population doubled.
The main economic development during this time that we need to know about is commercialization of the Song economy. This essentially meant that manufactures and artisans began to produce more goods than they consumed and they sold those excess goods in markets in China and across Eurasia.
The two most significant goods that they traded was porcelain and silk
Now that China had so much money, innovations in agriculture paved the way for a population explosion, the most significant agricultural innovation was the introduction of champa rice.
Champa rice was introduced to China from the Champa kingdom. Champa rice matured early, resisted drought, and could be harvested multiple times a year. That meant more food and led to significant population growth.
The last development that facilitated the growth of the Song economy were innovations in transportation. Perhaps the most important of which was the expansion of the Grand Canal, which facilitated trade and communication among China’s various regions.
Middle East
Dar Al Islam can be translated as the House of Islam which means all the places and people in the world where Islamic faith was the organizing principle of organization.
Christianity Judaism and Islam
It's important to know that in the heartland of the Muslim faith two other major religions were practiced. First was Judaism which was the ethnic tradition of the Jew which centered on the teaching of the Torah and the best of the Hebrew Bible. The second was Christianity which was kind of like an extension of Judaism centered on the teaching of Jesus Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. The third was Islam which was also related to Judaism and Christianity. The prophet Muhammad claimed to be the final prophet in the line of gods' messengers that stretch back to jewish and Christian scriptures. He taught his followers that salvation would be found in righteous action, like almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Each of these religions believed in one god meaning they were monotheistic.
Wherever those religions were practiced, believers used those religious principles to shape their societies.
Before 1200 various Muslim empires rose to dominance across Afro Eurasia, but in the time leading up to 1200 it was the Abbasid Caliphate whose center of power was located in Baghdad.
The Abbasid Caliphate was ethnically Arab.
By 1200 the Abbasid Caliphate had begun to break up and lose its powerful position at the center of the Muslim world. As the Abbasid power waned, several new Islamic political entities arose, and each of them were dominated not by Arab people, but by Turkic people.
Muslim empires were still around but now the dominant empires were led by ethnic Turks, not Arabs. For example the Seljuk empire, the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mamluk Sultanate.
The Seljuk empire was established in the 11th century in Central Asia by Turkic pastoralists known as the Seljuks.
The Abbasids needed military help in their projects of territorial expansion and keeping the diverse people groups in their empire in line. So they brought in Seljuk warriors, which turned out to be a big mistake. After some time it turned out that the Seljuk could see the weaknesses in the Abbasid regime. So they fought with the Abbasids and set up an Empire of their own. The Seljuk Empire didn’t entirely displace the Abbasid Empire.
The Mongols were the ones to entirely displace the Abbasid Empire. The Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258 and wiped the remains of the Abbasids from history.
While the Abbasids remained in power to a more limited degree, claiming to be the religious figurehead for Islam, it was the Seljuk who now held the power in the region.
During the period of 1200-1450 the dominance of Arab Muslim empires was fading while Turkic Muslim empires rose up to replace them. This was a big change.
Even though there was a big change the new Muslim empires also continued some practices from the former empires. For example
In these new Turkic empires, it was mostly the military that administered the states
They also continued the practice of establishing Sharia law as the organizing principle of their legal system which is a legal code based on the Quran.
It's important to know about the major cultural and scientific innovations coming out of the Muslim world during this period. For example
Scholar Nassir al-Din Altun, who made significant advances in mathematics and even invented trigonometry
Muslim scholars in place like the House of Wisdom in Baghdad preserved the works of Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, translating them into Arabic and commenting on them. These works eventually made it back to Europe, and would have been lost to history if not for their preservation by scholars of Dar al Islam.
The House of Wisdom was a library of a vast amount of scholarly works created under the Abbasid Empire during the Golden Age of Islam.
During this period Dar al Islam and Song China represented the center of the world's scholarship and wealth.
Expansion of Muslim Rule
During this period the expansion of Muslim rule happened in three ways.
Military expansion: Muslim empires expanded through military expansion as seen with the Seljuk, Mamluk and the Delhi sultanate.
Muslim merchants: Much of North Africa, was ruled by Muslims, and that stimulated trade and the movements of merchants throughout Africa. In West Africa the Empire of Mali gradually converted to Islam for many reasons, but the main reason was the increased trade among Dar al Islam.
Muslim Missionaries: The third expansion occurred through the Sufis. The Sufis represented a new sect of Islam which emphasized mystical experience and was far more open to adapting itself to local belief which is why it spread so easily. For example much of the conversion that occurred in south asia was due to Sufi missionaries.
South and Southeast Asia
How belief systems affect their societies
In South and Southeast Asia there were 3 main belief systems
Hinduism
Buddhism
Islam
These three belief systems and their various levels of influence had massive influence and shaped that area of the world.
Buddhism was born in South Asia but was in decline during this period.
In 1200 Buddhism in South Asia were mainly reduced to monastic communities in the North and in Nepal and Tibet
Hinduism was the primary religion in South Asia followed by Islam.
With the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, in large parts of India the Muslims were in charge; it became the religion of the elite there and later spread to Southeast Asia.
During this time Hinduism was going through change during this period.
The Bhakti movement began in the southern part of India as an innovation on traditional polytheistic Hinduism. Polytheistic means that they worshiped multiple gods. But in the Bhakti movement one of the Hindu gods was emphasized and this version of Hinduism became much more attractive to ordinary believers who had grown tired of complex Hindu hierarchies and sacrifices.
The Bhakti movement mounted some challenges to social and gender hierarchies present in Hindu India.
In Southeast Asia it was mainly Buddhist and Islam fighting for dominance. Islam was more widely practiced but in states like Thailand and Cambodia Buddhism was more popular.
State building
Although the Muslim Delhi sultanate ruled much of northern India ruled much of northern India they had difficulty holding to that rule and imposing a total Muslim state upon a majority Hindu population.
One area of Hindu resistance against Muslims was the existence of the Rajput Kingdoms. The Rajput kingdoms was a collection of rival and warring Hindu Kingdoms that existed before Muslim rule in northern India. Despite their constant attempts to kill each other they were able to keep Muslim rule at bay.
Another major Hindu kingdom rose up in the South during this time as a counterpoint to Muslim rule in the north, mainly the virgin Agora Empire established in 1336. This Kingdom was established because of a failed attempt by the Delhi Sultanate to extend Muslim rule into the South. They sent emissaries to the south to extend Muslim rule, but something unexpected occurred. The emissaries from the Delhi Sultanate were former Hindus who were converted to Islam under pressure from their Muslim conquerors. Once they got to the south far away from their Muslim overlords they converted back to Hinduism and created a rival empire in the south.
In Southeast Asia there was a very diverse set of sea based and land based empires, many of them made a name for themselves through their interactions with China and India.
One sea based empire was the Majapahit kingdom which was based in Java from 1293 to 1520. This was a Buddhist Kingdom and is one of the most powerful states in Southeast Asia. And though it was located on an island the Majapahit kingdom maintained its influence not necessarily through naval power, but by controlling sea routes for trade.
The Majapahit began to decline when China started supporting its trading rival, the Sultanate of Malacca.
One example of a land based empire is the Khmer Empire, which was founded as a Hindu kingdom but at some point the leadership shifted to Buddhism.
In the Khmer Empire you can see the influence of the two belief systems in the structure called the Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat was built as a magnificent Hindu temple, but after the conversion to Buddhism they added many Buddhist elements to the structure without removing the Hindu elements. Therefore Angkor Wat represents the kingdom's religious continuity and its change over time.