AP World History Summer Vocabulary Reference Guide

Historiography

• Historical Context: This refers to the background information necessary to explain how or why a specific historical development, process, or event occurred. It provides the setting and circumstances surrounding a historical narrative.

• Intended Audience: This identifies the inferred readers or the specific group of people that a historical source was targeted toward at the time of its creation.

• Source/Author Purpose: This is the inferred reason or motivation behind the creation of a particular source; it answers why the author produced the work.

• Point of View (Bias): This describes the inferred prejudice or perspective of a source's author. It is typically established and understood after analyzing the Context, Intended Audience, and Purpose of the document.

• Primary Source: An original, first-hand account or raw evidence originating from a specific event, topic, or time period. Examples include:

  • First-hand testimony.
  • Auto-biographies.
  • Letters and journal entries.
  • Government records.
  • Original photographs and videos.
  • Original research.

• Secondary Source: Information that interprets, analyzes, summarizes, or discusses original evidence found in primary sources. Examples include:

  • Textbooks.
  • Scholarly analysis.
  • Encyclopedias.
  • Documentaries.
  • Biographies.

• Era/Period: A specific segment of historical time characterized by distinct historical developments, processes, events, and figures. An example provided is the Medieval or Feudal Period.

Governance and Politics

• Absolutism: A political system where a single ruler holds and exercises unlimited, usually centralized, power. This is achieved through the process of consolidation and legitimization, allowing the leader to meld the state with their own personality and create a strong, centralized government.

• Monarchy: A political system in which state power is held by one person, such as a king, queen, or emperor, typically for the duration of their life. When rule is transferred across blood lines, it is known as a hereditary monarchy.

• Republicanism: A political ideology centered on representative government. Power is vested in the people (popular sovereignty) who consent to empower the state through electoral processes (voting). These states are usually governed by a set of laws, such as a constitution.

• Democracy: A system of government where power is held by the people and exercised through free elections.

• Fascism: A far-right, ultra-nationalist, and militaristic authoritarian ideology. It prioritizes the needs of a specific political group or ideology over all others. Nazi Germany is cited as a primary example of a fascist state.

• Propaganda: The systematic dissemination of information, ideas, or rumors to influence public opinion and shape perceptions. This information is often biased, misleading, or incomplete and is designed to promote a specific political cause or agenda.

• Natural Rights: Universal and inalienable rights possessed by all humans. The concept gained significant popularity during the Enlightenment of the $17^{th}$ to $18^{th}$ centuries.

• Nationalism: A political ideology and movement asserting that the state should be independent and culturally unique, promoting the needs of the Nation-State over global considerations.

• Imperialism: A policy or practice where a state exerts control (direct or indirect) and influence over a foreign territory. This can manifest as economic imperialism, cultural imperialism, or colonialism. An example is England and its global empire during the $17^{th}$ through $20^{th}$ centuries.

• Resistance, Rebellion, Reform, and Revolution: These terms are often used interchangeably to describe violent or non-violent struggles against existing power structures. They represent calls for change within a society or the outright removal and replacement of an established government.

Economics

• Manorialism: An economic system common in medieval Europe where society and economic output centered on and depended upon large-scale estates known as "manors."

• Mercantilism: An economic system widely used by large Transoceanic-Empires from the $16^{th}$ to $18^{th}$ centuries. These empires extracted massive amounts of resources and heavily regulated trade to increase national wealth.

• Free-Market Enterprise System (Capitalism): An economic system where individuals are free to buy, sell, trade, and produce goods. It prioritizes private ownership, profit motives, and competitive markets with little to no government interference.

• Socialism: An economic and political philosophy promoting public, collective, or government ownership of production rather than ownership by private individuals or corporations. Adoption of such policies can lead to the establishment of a classless communist society.

• Economic Globalization: The increasing integration and interdependency of national economies. This occurs through the unrestricted movement of goods, services, and technologies across international borders.

• Labor System: The organization of work within a society. Labor is categorized as:

  • Free labor.
  • Coerced (forced) labor, which includes forms such as serfdom, indentured servitude, or slavery.

Society

• Social Hierarchy: A system of organization that ranks individuals based on socially agreed-upon categories such as wealth, gender, religion, nationality, or race/ethnic background. These hierarchies are considered historical continuities.

• Caste System: A rigid form of social hierarchy where rank, rights, and privileges are determined by the circumstances of an individual's birth. This is a historical continuity specifically noted in India.

• Patriarchy: A society controlled by men that privileges the needs, wants, and rights of men above non-men, specifically women.

• Feudalism: A decentralized socio-political system where power was held by a few landed gentry loyal to the monarch. These elites offered protection to peasants in exchange for the peasants working the land granted by the monarch.

• Economic Stratification: A social hierarchy based specifically on the amount of wealth an individual possesses.

Technology

• Agricultural Technology: Tools, techniques, systems, and innovations used to increase food production. This often stabilizes state power by contributing to urbanization and population growth. Examples include:

  • Irrigation systems like the Grand Canal.
  • Techniques such as terrace farming or chinampas.
  • Systems like the Columbian Exchange.
  • Tools like the heavy plow and seed drill.

• Transportation Technology: Tools, vehicles, and infrastructure used to move goods, people, armies, and ideas across land and water. These developments lead to trade expansion, cultural diffusion, and globalization. Examples include:

  • Road systems and the Silk Road (including caravans).
  • Camel saddles used for the Trans-Saharan Trade Route.
  • Maritime technologies such as the stern rudder and lateen sail used in the Indian Ocean Trade Network.

• Communication Technology: Methods and systems used to spread information, beliefs, and knowledge. These enhance record keeping, taxation, codification of laws, and cultural preservation. Examples include:

  • Paper and the printing press.
  • The Mongolian post-relay system.
  • The telegraph, telephone, and radio.
  • Social media.

• Military Technology: Innovations, weapons, and tactics used in warfare to gain political or military advantage, aiding in the expansion of state power. Examples include:

  • Stirrups and horse saddles, which helped the Mongol Empire become the largest contiguous empire.
  • Gunpowder weapons like cannons and rifles, used by the Ottoman Empire to conquer Anatolia.
  • Ship designs like gunboat galleons, carracks, and caravels, which ushered in the era of European Exploration and Imperialism from the $15^{th}$ to $18^{th}$ centuries.

• Industrialization: The transition from hand production and agricultural economies to machine-based manufacturing. This process was powered by new energy sources like coal, steam, and fossil fuels, leading to the development of factories and mechanized production that transformed labor systems and social structures.

Culture

• Syncretism: The blending or combining of two or more religious or cultural belief systems to create a new system. Examples include:

  • Zen/Chan Buddhism: Influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism in China.
  • Sikhism: Influenced by Islam and Hindu traditions.

• Cultural Diffusion: The spread of ideas, beliefs, technologies, languages, or customs via trade, migration, conquest, or communication. Historically, this occurs through networks of exchange. An example is the spread of Islam into North Africa and South Asia via the Trans-Saharan Trade Route and the Indian Ocean Trade Network.

• Religion: A system of practices, beliefs, and values centered on meaning, morality, and the divine. Key religions analyzed include:

  • Abrahamic Religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
  • Other Major Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

• Diaspora: The dispersion of a group of people from their original homeland, often maintaining their identity in new locations. It can be:

  • Involuntary: Such as the African Diaspora due to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade or Jewish migration due to global Anti-Semitism.
  • Voluntary: Such as Chinese laborers moving west or Arab merchants traveling to Southeast Asia via the Indian Ocean Trade Network.

• Globalization: The increasing interconnectedness of the world's populations, politics, cultures, and economies through technology, communication, and trade. Examples include the global connection provided by the internet and the necessity for global cooperation through institutions like the United Nations to manage nuclear weapons.