AP World History: Modern key terms

Chinese dynasty from 960 to 1279 that reunified much of China, expanded civil service exams, and oversaw commercial growth, cities, printing, and new gunpowder weapons.

A revived Confucian philosophy that emerged in Song China, blending ethical and social teachings with Buddhist and Daoist ideas and shaping government, education, and family life across East Asia.

An Islamic empire centered in Baghdad from 750 to 1258 that presided over a golden age of trade, scholarship, and administration before the Mongol conquest ended it.

A library and research center in Abbasid Baghdad where scholars translated Greek, Persian, and Indian texts and advanced mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

A succession of Muslim dynasties that ruled much of northern India from 1206 to 1526, introducing Islamic administration and architecture while interacting with Hindu society.

A devotional Hindu movement that spread in medieval India, emphasizing personal love and surrender to a deity and often rejecting rigid caste and ritual hierarchies.

An Andean state centered at Cusco that used roads, quipu records, and labor tribute to govern millions of people across western South America before the Spanish conquest.

Overland trade routes linking China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe that carried silk, spices, ideas, technologies, and diseases across Eurasia.

A vast Eurasian empire founded by Genghis Khan in the early 1200s that connected trade routes, promoted exchange, and later fragmented into regional khanates.

Prosperous trading ports along East Africa's coast, such as Kilwa and Mombasa, that linked African interior goods to Indian Ocean commerce and blended African, Islamic, and Arab cultures.

Caravan trade across the Sahara that connected West African gold and salt to North African and Mediterranean markets and helped spread Islam.

A pandemic of plague that swept Eurasia and North Africa in the mid-1300s, killing tens of millions and disrupting economies, labor systems, and societies.

A Turkish Islamic empire that expanded from Anatolia to control southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, lasting from about 1300 to 1922.

A Persian Shi'a Muslim empire from 1501 to 1736 that established Twelver Shi'ism as the state religion and contested trade and territory with the Ottomans and Mughals.

A Muslim dynasty that ruled much of India from 1526 to 1857, known for centralized administration, cultural flourishing, and monuments such as the Taj Mahal.

The Manchu-led dynasty that ruled China from 1644 to 1912, expanding territory, maintaining a Confucian bureaucracy, and facing growing pressure from European powers.

An Ottoman system that recruited Christian boys from conquered regions, converted them to Islam, and trained them for military or administrative service, including the janissaries.

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after 1492, transforming diets, populations, and economies.

The forced transport of millions of enslaved Africans to the Americas from the 1500s to the 1800s, driven by plantation labor and integrated into Atlantic commerce.

A Spanish colonial system that granted colonists the labor of Indigenous people in exchange for supposed protection and Christian instruction, often amounting to forced labor.

An economic doctrine that measured national power by accumulated wealth and encouraged colonies, exports, and trade monopolies to secure favorable balances of trade.

The brutal sea voyage that carried enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, marked by crowding, disease, and high mortality.

An eighteenth-century European intellectual movement emphasizing reason, natural rights, and limits on absolute authority, which inspired political revolutions and constitutions.

A period of radical political and social change in France from 1789 to 1799 that overthrew the monarchy, challenged noble privilege, and spread revolutionary ideas across Europe.

A successful slave uprising and independence struggle in Saint-Domingue from 1791 to 1804 that created Haiti and challenged slavery and colonial rule.

The transition to machine-powered production, factories, and new transportation that began in Britain around 1750 and transformed economies, societies, and global power.

A political ideology holding that people sharing a common language, history, or culture should form a sovereign nation, which fueled revolutions, unification, and conflicts.

The extension of political, economic, or military control by one state over another territory or people, especially the late nineteenth-century European scramble for colonies.

The misuse of evolutionary ideas to justify competition, inequality, and imperial domination by claiming that stronger societies naturally prevailed over weaker ones.

An 1884–1885 meeting of European powers that set rules for claiming African territory, accelerating the partition of Africa without African representation.

Two nineteenth-century conflicts between China and Western powers, sparked by the opium trade, that forced China to open ports and accept unequal treaties.

A form of warfare in which belligerent states mobilize entire societies and target civilian economies and populations, as in both world wars.

The 1919 peace agreement ending World War I that imposed territorial losses, disarmament, and reparations on Germany and reshaped European borders.

An authoritarian nationalist ideology that glorifies the state, rejects liberal democracy, and often uses violence, propaganda, and scapegoating, as in Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

The prolonged geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II, marked by nuclear competition, proxy wars, and ideological conflict.

A U.S. Cold War policy aimed at preventing the spread of communism through military alliances, economic aid, and interventions in countries such as Korea and Vietnam.

The process by which Asian and African colonies achieved independence from European empires after World War II, often through nationalist movements and sometimes violent struggle.

The growing interconnection of economies, cultures, and societies through trade, migration, communication, and technology, accelerating sharply in the late twentieth century.

A company that operates production, sales, or services in multiple countries, often shifting investment and jobs across borders and influencing global trade and labor markets.

The long-term rise in Earth's average temperature caused mainly by human emissions of greenhouse gases, leading to climate change, rising seas, and extreme weather.