Units 3-5 AP World History

Unit 2: Trans-Saharan Trade and Cultural Diffusion

Trans-Saharan Trade

• Connected North Africa and the Mediterranean with interior West Africa.

• Growth factors:

  • Innovations in transportation technologies

  • Strategic positions

• Transportation technology: Arabian camel and saddle.

  • Increased interregional trade and geographical range of trade routes.

• 12th century: New empires rose, spurred by trade (e.g., Mali).

• Islam introduced to Mali in the 9th century.

  • Connected Mali commercially to Muslim merchants across Afro-Eurasia.

• Mansa Musa: Most powerful ruler in Mali.

  • Monopolized trade, increased Mali's wealth, facilitated trade network growth.

Cultural Diffusion

• Major Effect: Growth of trading routes promoting cultural diffusion

• Religion and Belief Systems:

  • Buddhism: Originated in India, entered China via Silk Road, transformed into Chan Buddhism, then Zen Buddhism in Japan.

  • Hinduism and Buddhism: Entered Southeast Asia through trade (Srivijaya and Majapahit states).

  • Islam: Spread throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia through trade and conquest.

  • Swahili language (Arabic and Bantu) facilitated trade.

  • Timbuktu in Mali: International center for Islamic education.

  • Impact in South Asia.

• Scientific and Technological Innovations

  • Champa Rice from Vietnam: Led to population increase

Rise and Fall of Cities

• Samarkand and Kashgar: Centers of Islamic scholarship and cultural flourishing along Silk Road.

• Baghdad: Sacked by Mongols in December, leading to decline.

Travelers

• Increasing interconnectedness facilitated travel

• Ibn Battuta:

  • Young Muslim scholar from Morocco.

  • Traveled across Islam for about 30 years, writing detailed notes

  • His travels became possible because of trade routes and interconnectedness

Environmental Consequences

• Increasing interconnection led to significant environmental consequences.

• Spread of crops:

  • Bananas in Africa: Introduced via Indian Ocean trade, led to rise of chiefdoms and kingdoms.

  • Champa Rice in East Asia: Powerful consequences of spreading food into new regions.

• Spread of disease:

  • Bubonic Plague (Black Death): Spread due to increasing connectivity.

Mongols

• Created the largest land-based empire in history, facilitating interaction across Afro-Eurasia.

• Facilitated trade by controlling the Silk Road network.

  • Silk Road network thrives under large empires due to safety and continuity.

• Encouraged international trade and extracted wealth as facilitators.

• Increased communication and cooperation across Eurasia.

  • Persian and Chinese courts worked together.

• Technological and cultural transfers:

  • Transfer of people leads to transfer of technology, ideas, and culture.

  • Advances in astronomy in the Ilkhani region (former Mongol Empire).

  • Increased accuracy of calendars, improved astrolabe which facilitated more growth in Indian Ocean trade

  • Predicted solar and lunar eclipses.

Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (1450-1750)

Land-Based Empires (1450-1750)

• Gunpowder is a chief means by which these land based empires were able to expand, consolidate power, all of it.

• Ottoman Empire

  • Founded in the 14th century.

  • Expanded with gunpowder weapons.

  • Sacked Constantinople in 1453, renamed Istanbul.

  • Fierce military: Janissaries (enslaved Christians converted to Islam).

• Safavid Empire (Middle East)

  • Established in 1501 by Shah Ismail, made into Shia Islamic dynasty.

  • Conflict with Sunni Mughals and Ottomans.

  • Shah Abbas built up military with gunpowder weapons.

  • Enslaved army from conquered Christian regions.

• Mughal Empire (South and Central Asia)

  • Established in 1526 by Babur, displacing Delhi Sultanate.

  • Expanded using gunpowder.

  • Akbar's rule covered half of the Indian Subcontinent.

  • Religious tolerance and masterful administration.

• Qing Dynasty (China)

  • Mongol rule declined.

  • Ming dynasty weakened by divisions and external wars.

  • Manchu people from the North raided China and established the Qing dynasty in 1636.

  • Qing rulers were Manchu, while most of the Chinese population was Han.

• Rivalries

  • Safavid-Mughal conflicts in Middle East: Wars due to territorial and religious (Shia vs. Sunni) conflicts.

Consolidation in Land Based Empires

• Rulers gained and maintained control by:

  • Establishing bureaucracies

  • Sponsoring art

  • Centralizing tax collection

  • Developing large militaries

• State legitimizing power: Methods used to communicate who's in charge

• Consolidating power: Methods used to transfer power from other groups to a single ruler

Methods of Legitimizing and Consolidating Power

• Large Bureaucracies

  • Ottomans: Used the devshirme system to staff bureaucracy.

• Military Professionals

  • Janissaries and armaments.

  • Japan's Tokugawa Shogunate: Samurai put on government payroll, became salaried warriors/bureaucrats.

• Religious Ideas, Art, and Monumental Architecture

  • Europe: Monarchs claimed divine right to rule.

  • France: Louis XIV used architecture to consolidate rule; Palace of Versailles forced nobility to live there under his control

  • Aztecs: Human sacrifice rituals displayed wealth to show legitimacy.

  • Inca Empire: Sun Temple at Cusco, walls covered in gold and golden statues, showing authority.

  • China: Qing Emperor Kangxi used art to consolidate power. Commissioned portraits to display himself surrounded by books suggesting Confucian wisdom showing that despite being Manchu (not Han) he was aligned with Confucianism.

• Tax Collection Systems

  • Mughal Empire: Zamindar tax collection system, elite landowners taxed peasants.

  • Ottomans: Tax farming, right to tax people went to highest bidder, leading to wealth for tax farmers.

Belief Systems

• Belief systems can bind people together or cause conflict.

• Europe: Christianity was a shared belief, but the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century broke that unity.

  • Martin Luther and the 95 Theses (1517): Printing press spread his ideas.

  • Split between Roman Catholics and Protestants.

  • Religious wars in Europe until 1648.

  • Catholic Reformation (Counter-Reformation) introduced reforms and reaffirmed ancient doctrines.

• Sunni-Shia split in Islam:

  • Intensified conflict between Mughal and Ottoman empires.

• New belief systems emerge:

  • Sikhism in South Asia: Blend of Hindu and Islamic doctrines.

Unit 4: Maritime Technology and European Exploration

Maritime Technology

• New and updated maritime technology facilitated oceanic trade and the development of sea-based empires.

• Borrowed and Updated Knowledge and Technology

  • Europeans borrowed technologies from classical Islamic and Asian worlds

  • Astrolabe (Greeks and Muslims), magnetic compass (China), latine sail (Mediterranean trade network).

• European Innovations

  • Ship Design: Portuguese (Caravel - smaller, nimble, fast), Dutch (Flout - large cargo space - Dutch VOC dominance)

European Exploration

• European state-sponsored exploration led to an expansion of trade and transatlantic contact with the Americas.

• Motives for states sponsoring exploration

  • Wealth building, spread Christianity, and competition with other states (Gold, god, and glory).

  • Wealth Building: Wanted access to Indian Ocean trade. Muslim empires controlled land routes between Europe and China/Southeast Asia.

  • Spread that Christianity: Tended to tie Christianity very tightly to their political structure.

  • Competition: Chief mechanisms of this was mercantilism (more to come)

• Portugal

  • First big mover in maritime empire game, establishing a trading post empire around Africa and into the Indian Ocean.

• Spain

  • Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored Christopher Columbus seeking a new water route to facilitate Spanish participation in the Asian spice trade

  • The effect of that was that it dramatically increased interest in transatlantic sailing after he ran into these two giant and previously unknown continents

  • Couldn't find that sea route to Asia.

Columbian Exchange

• Colombian Exchange: Transferred animals, foods, and diseases between Europe and the Americas.

• Foods transferred between New World and Old World

  • From The Americas to Europe: Potatoes and maize

  • From Europe to The Americas: Wheat and rice

• Effects of this exchange of foods:

  • Afro-Eurasian populations began to expand their diet, which made them overall healthier, which in turn increased their lifespan, which in turn led to a population increase.

• Animals that were transferring:

  • From The Americas into Europe: Turkeys and llamas

  • From Europe into the Americas: Cattle and pigs and horses.

  • Expansion of diets, revolutionizing agriculture, and that sort of thing.

• Spread of Disease

  • From Europe into The Americas: Smallpox, measles, very deadly

• Colonization of the Americas

  • Portuguese colonized Brazil.

  • Agriculture there, mainly a growing of cash crops especially sugarcane.

• Labor Needs

  • Initially forced coerced labor on Indigenous people to cultivate sugarcane.

  • Smallpox & diseases killed most of the Indigenous population and there were less laborers.

• Big Effect:

  • Increased the demand for enslaved labor from Africa.

Empire Building

• European states established empires fueled by mercantilist economic policy and coerced labor systems.

• Europe and Africa

  • Portuguese established trading post empire around Africa. Some perceived that as intruders, some African Kingdoms grew

• British Maritime Expansion

  • British in India, began by establishing trading posts under the authority of the British East India Company.

  • Took advantage of the growing tension between muslims and hindus, their political influence grew.

  • The British East India Company had control over much of the India Subcontinent because of it.

• Spanish Colonies

  • To meet the Aztec and the Inca empires. Quickly collapsed when the Spanish attacked (ravaged by disease).

• Diplomacy

  • Competition with between various colonial powers over who was gonna get what wind.

  • Treaty of Tordesillas

  • Spain and Portugal, divided up territory with Brazil and gave the Western part to Portugal in is deal.

• Spanish colonial economy based on Agriculture.

  • Encomender system:

  • Coercive labor the Spanish used to compel indigenous people to work their plantations

  • Hacienda system:

  • Paid laborers low wages high rates of debt (coerced labor).

• Spanish transformed the Maeda system

  • They turned the Maya system, the Spanish did, into a system of coerced labor: Sending young men to work in dangerous silver mines.

• Mercantilism

  • Dominant economic system during this time for Europeans. Measuring wealth in gold and silver. State motivation for planting the flag to enrich homeland, because they are trying to get more gold.

• Enslaved African laborers. And plantation economy of The Americas grew the same demand for enslaved people from Africa did as well.

  • The triangular trade impacted Africa.

  • Africans affected The Americas. They shaped the language and the Culture with food like okra, with religious beliefs and that sort of thing.

Unit 5: Economic & Societal Changes and Resistance

Economic & Societal Changes

• Maritime empires over time transformed economies and societies.

• Rise of Joint Stock Companies

  • Permitted colonization and exploration with little risk towards those investors. A system that can pool all investor money and would lose if filed but can gain a lot if succeeded.

• Economical Disputes

  • The Marrokian Conflict with the Songhai Empire. Travel the Sahara Desert invaded the Songhai empire and eventually the state crumbled.

• Triangular trade in terms of how it changed economies and societies.

  • From Europe to Africa to The Caribbean and the Americas that became an important source economically for these states.

• Spread of religion in terms of societies.

  • Two common responses.

  • Syncretism- the blending of ingenuous religons from Spanish, Portuguese in the Americans