AP World History Modern Speed Review Notes

AP World History Modern Speed Review

Introduction
  • This review covers the entire AP World History Modern course.
  • A free speed review sheet is available for download.
  • Highlight topics you don't remember and check them off once you feel confident.
Unit 1: Global Tapestry (1200-1450)
  • East Asia:
    • Song Dynasty:
      • Neo-Confucianism and civil service exam.
      • Confucianism is the main belief system.
      • Jokka rice leads to food surplus.
      • Influence extends to Korea and Japan.
  • Dar al-Islam (The World of Islam):
    • Capital shifted after the Abbasids fell to the Mongols.
    • Sultanates (Islamic kingdoms) established.
    • Significant contributions to math, science, medicine, and intellectual pursuits.
  • South and Southeast Asia:
    • Buddhism and Hinduism significantly influenced the region.
    • Sufism: A mystical branch of Islam that attracted many converts in Dar al-Islam.
  • The Americas:
    • Incas: Centralized power through their road system and the Mita labor system.
    • Aztecs: Centralized power through human sacrifice.
      • Chinampas (floating gardens).
  • Africa:
    • Focus on state building.
    • Mali and the Trans-Saharan trade.
    • Great Zimbabwe and the Swahili Coast.
  • Europe:
    • Feudalism: Peasants (serfs) working on manors.
    • Decentralized system of government.
Syncretism
  • Blending of different beliefs or practices.
  • Example: Neo-Confucianism blends Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
  • Diffusion occurs through trade routes.
Caliphate vs. Sultanate
  • Caliphate: Blending of political and religious leadership.
  • Sultanate: Leader of an Islamic kingdom, but not the religious leader of Islam itself.
    • Example: Delhi Sultanate.
Unit 2: Networks of Exchange (c. 1200-1450)
  • Focuses on how different regions were connected.
  • Remember this makes up 80% of the AP test.
  • Trade Routes:
    • Silk Road:
      • East meets West.
      • Trading teams like Kashgar and Samarkand emerge.
      • Luxury goods like silk and porcelain.
      • Banking houses and flying cash.
    • Indian Ocean Trade:
      • Maritime version of the Silk Road.
      • Same trade cities, luxury goods, and technology.
      • Key terms:
        • Diaspora: Communities of people living outside their homeland.
        • Admiral Zheng He: Famous admiral who made voyages along this trade route.
        • Monsoon winds: Seasonal winds; knowledge of them was essential for trade.
    • Trans-Saharan Trade:
      • Connects Dar al-Islam to Sub-Saharan Africa.
      • Salt and gold are major commodities.
      • Camel saddles, caravans.
      • Mansa Musa's Hajj to Mecca.
  • Consequences of Trade:
    • Environmental:
      • Spread of crops (sugar, Champa rice, bananas).
      • Bubonic Plague.
    • Cultural:
      • Spread of religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam).
      • Gunpowder, algebra, compass.
  • The Mongols:
    • Facilitated the spread of ideas, technologies, and diseases.
    • Their empires weren't that economic.
    • Tolerant.
Consequences (Effects)
  • Consequences: An effect.
  • Trade consequences: Effects of trade can be environmental and cultural.
Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (1450-1750)

  • Also known as Gunpowder Empires.

  • The beginning of this unit overlaps with the Ming Dynasty.

  • Key Empires:

    • Manchus (Qing Dynasty in China):
      • Came from the North and established the last Chinese dynasty.
      • Maintained Neo-Confucianism, civil service exam, and dynastic system.
      • Centralized power using the banner system.
      • Ruled from 1644-1911, overlapping time periods.
    • Ottomans:
      • Captured Constantinople in 1453.
      • Sunni Muslims who rivaled the Shia Safavids.
      • Key terms:
        • Devshirme: System of recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats, including Janissaries.
        • Tax farming: Selling the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder.
    • Mughals:
      • Islamic rulers over a Hindu majority in India.
      • Religiously tolerant, especially under Akbar the Great.
      • Built the Taj Mahal.
    • Safavids:
      • Shia empire located between the Ottomans and Mughals.

  • Other Empires:

    • Songhai: Islamic powerhouse in West Africa.
    • Tokugawa Japan: Established a military shogunate and eventually closed the country (seclusion).

  • Belief Systems:

    • Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church.
    • Sikhism: Emerged in the Mughal Empire, blending Hinduism and Islam.
Mughals
  • The religion type was mostly Sunni.
  • They were the minority.
Sufis
  • A mystical branch of Islam.
  • They seek a deeper, experiential understanding of Islam.
Tax Farming
  • Granting the right to tax to an individual.
Unit 4: Maritime Empires (1450-1750)
  • This covers the transoceanic trade by the Europeans.
  • Key Technologies:
    • Portuguese and Spanish caravel ships.
    • Islamic astrolabe.
    • Chinese compasses.
    • Lateen sails.
    • Knowledge of wind patterns.
  • Key Empires:
    • Portuguese:
      • Prince Henry the Navigator.
      • Sought a route around Africa and to spread Christianity.
      • Reached Brazil and India (1498).
      • Controlled the Spice Islands.
      • Initiated the Transatlantic slave trade.
    • Spanish:
      • Established viceroyalties in the Americas.
      • Conquered the Aztecs and Incas.
      • Encomienda system (New World feudalism).
      • Extracted cash crops (sugar, coffee) and silver (Potosi).
      • Spread Catholicism (God, Glory, Gold).
  • Trading Post Empires:
    • European empires established small trading posts to move goods.
  • Joint Stock Companies:
    • Government-sponsored monopolies where individuals could invest.
    • British East India Company (dominated South Asia).
    • Dutch VOC (dominated modern-day Indonesia).
  • Columbian Exchange:
    • Transfer of plants, animals, and diseases across the Atlantic.
    • Environmental and demographic impact.
  • Resistance to European Powers:
    • Revolts of enslaved people (Queen Nanny).
    • Resistance from local leaders (Hindu Marathas).
  • Social Systems:
    • Casta system.
Three G's
  • God.
  • Glory.
  • Gold.
Unit 5: Revolutions (1750-1900)
  • Begins with the Age of Enlightenment.
  • Political Revolutions:
    • Influenced by Enlightenment philosophers and ideas of natural rights.
    • American Revolution: Taxation without representation.
    • Haitian Revolution: Slave revolt led against the British.
    • Latin American Revolutions: Led by Simon Bolivar.
    • Nationalism: A shared group of people fight for their beliefs.
  • Industrial Revolution
    • Began in England around 1750.
    • Factors: Access to resources, capital, urban areas.
    • Factory system: Mass production.
    • Key innovations: Steam engine, internal combustion engines, railroads, telegraph.
    • Decline in Asian production.
    • Meiji Restoration
    • Self-Strengthening Movement
    • China
    • Egypt nationalizing cotton.
  • Economic Changes:
    • Adam Smith and capitalism replace mercantilism.
    • Laissez-faire policies.
    • Karl Marx and communism.
  • Social Changes:
    • Women push for equality.
    • Rise of a new working class.
    • Karl Marx envisioned a worker revolution.
    • HSBC
Opium Wars
  • Influenced Japan to start the Industrial Revolution.
  • China was getting taken over under a the Central of Humiliation.
Fair Policies
  • Adam Smith and capitalism.
Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization (1750-1900)
  • Focuses on Imperialism.
  • Motives for Imperialism:
    • Economic: Access to raw materials and markets.
    • Political, cultural and the scientific racism, civilized emission, and white man's burden
  • Major Imperial Powers:
    • British, Japanese, Russians, French.
  • Settler Colonies:
    • Forcibly removed natives and replaced their culture.
  • Key Events:
    • Berlin Conference: Determined the future of Africa.
    • Sepoy Mutiny: Led to the British Raj in India, switch from private company rule to government rule.
    • Sphere of Influence: The Century of Humiliation in China: Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Sino-Japanese War, Boxer Rebellion.
  • Economic Domination without Direct Rule:
    • The Banana Republics in the Americas.
    • British influence in China during the Opium Wars.
  • Export Economies:
    • Focused on cotton, rubber, palm oil.
  • Resistance to Imperialism:
    • Sepoy Mutiny (India).
    • Tupac Amaru II (Peru).
    • Coosa cattle killing movement (Africa).
  • Migrations:
    • Driven by job opportunities and new technologies.
    • People moved to cities like London, New York, Buenos Aires.
    • Diaspora. The Irish were pushed to migrate because of the potato famine.
    • Enclaves: Migrants set up cultural enclaves (Little Italy, Chinatown).
    • Restrictions: Chinese Exclusion Act, White Australia policy.
Unit 7: Global Conflict (1900-Present)
  • Decline of Empires:
    • China, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire.
    • China becomes a republic.
    • The Bolsheviks overran the Russians.
    • Ottomans was broken after World War 1.
  • World War I:
    • Caused by imperialism, alliance systems, and nationalism.
    • Total war: Mobilization of entire countries.
    • Propaganda.
    • New military tactics: Machine guns, gas, tanks.
  • Interwar Period:
    • Great Depression.
    • Rise of dictatorships (Italy, Spain, Germany) to fix broken economies.
    • Growing tensions within empires.
  • World War II:
    • Aggression of totalitarian states (Germany, Japan).
    • Total war.
    • Atomic bombs.
  • Mass Atrocities:
    • Holocaust, Armenian genocide, Cambodian genocide.
  • USSR Five Year plans are the same thing as collectivization.
  • Mao Zedong did the same thing.
The Holocaust
  • It will be on the multiple choice aspect of the test.
Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization (1900-Present)
  • Cold War: NATO, Warsaw Pact, and…