World History
What this domain tests
World History covers cross-cultural exchange, empire, belief systems, trade networks, technological change, colonialism, revolution, and globalization. You should compare societies and explain interaction, not memorize isolated civilization facts.
Core rules
- Use networks as units of analysis. The Silk Roads, Indian Ocean trade, trans-Saharan routes, and Atlantic system moved goods, faiths, technologies, and microbes.
- Compare with criteria. Compare political legitimacy, labor systems, gender roles, or taxation-not vague claims that one civilization was advanced.
- Periodize carefully. 1453, 1492, 1750, and 1914 are useful markers only if tied to changes in trade, empire, or industry.
- Explain diffusion and adaptation. Buddhism changed as it moved into East Asia; Islam shaped and was shaped by local cultures.
- Avoid Eurocentrism and teleology. Industrialization was not destined to begin in Britain; explain coal, capital, empire, and institutions.
Worked example
Prompt: Explain the Columbian Exchange's consequences. Reasoning: the transfer of maize, potatoes, and tomatoes increased food supplies in Eurasia, while smallpox and other diseases devastated Indigenous populations in the Americas. Silver from Potosí linked American mining to European and Chinese commerce. The strongest answers separate biological, demographic, economic, and cultural effects-and note that consequences differed by region and social position.
Traps
Treating civilizations as static; ignoring non-state actors such as merchants and missionaries; assuming contact always meant conquest; using modern borders for premodern regions; and confusing the Columbian Exchange with the later Atlantic slave trade alone.