AP World History: Modern
Advanced Placement World History: Modern aligned with the College Board CED: nine units from c. 1200 CE to the present, covering global tapestry, networks of exchange, land-based empires, transoceanic interconnections, revolutions, industrialization, imperialism, world wars, the Cold War, decolonization, and globalization.
Ämne: Historia · Nivå: Gymnasium (16–19) · 450 kort
Innehåll
- AP World History: Modern begins in c. 1200 CE and covers nine units across roughly 800 years to the present, organized around themes of state-building, cultural development, economic systems, social interactions, technology, and human-environment interaction.
- The Song Dynasty (960-1279) in China developed Neo-Confucianism, expanded civil service exams, used paper money, and led the world in innovations including gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and movable-type printing.
- Champa rice, a fast-ripening, drought-resistant strain introduced to China from Vietnam c. 1000, allowed two annual harvests and fueled a population boom from ~60 million to ~120 million during the Song.
- Neo-Confucianism, synthesized by Zhu Xi (1130-1200), blended classical Confucianism with Buddhist and Daoist metaphysics, emphasized filial piety and hierarchical social roles, and became state orthodoxy across East Asia.
- The Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) spanned from Iberia to South Asia by 1200, unified by Arabic as a lingua franca, sharia law, and the hajj pilgrimage, even as the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) fragmented politically.
- The Seljuk Turks, a Sunni Turkic dynasty, conquered Baghdad in 1055, defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert (1071) opening Anatolia to Turkic settlement, and held nominal political power while the Abbasid caliph remained spiritual head.
- The Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) was a series of five Muslim Turkic-Afghan dynasties ruling much of the Indian subcontinent, imposing the jizya tax on non-Muslims and patronizing Persian-Islamic culture while South Asia remained majority Hindu.
- The Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517), based in Egypt, was ruled by an elite of enslaved Turkic and Circassian soldiers who took power from the Ayyubids and famously halted the Mongol advance at the Battle of Ain Jalut (1260).
- Sufism, a mystical strand of Islam emphasizing direct personal experience of the divine through poetry, music, and meditation, was crucial in converting populations in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Anatolia by adapting to local cultures.
- The Bhakti movement in Hinduism emphasized devotional worship of a personal deity, was open to all castes and women, and produced poet-saints like Mirabai and Kabir who often blended Hindu and Sufi-Islamic ideas.
- The Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1646) was a powerful Hindu state in southern India founded explicitly to resist Muslim expansion from the Delhi Sultanate; its capital at Hampi was one of the largest cities in the world before its sack in 1565.
- The Khmer Empire (802-1431), based in Cambodia, built the massive temple complex of Angkor Wat (12th c.), originally Hindu and later Buddhist, supported by sophisticated hydraulic engineering with extensive reservoirs and canals.
- The Majapahit Empire (1293-1527), based in Java, was a Hindu-Buddhist maritime power controlling much of insular Southeast Asia through tribute and trade across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
- Mali Empire (c. 1230-1670) controlled trans-Saharan gold-salt trade in West Africa. Mansa Musa's hajj to Mecca (1324-25) distributed so much gold in Cairo that it caused regional inflation lasting a decade.
- Timbuktu in the Mali Empire became a major Islamic intellectual center; the Sankore Madrasah housed an estimated 25,000 students at its peak and one of the largest libraries in the medieval world.
- Great Zimbabwe (c. 1100-1450) was a powerful southern African kingdom whose massive stone enclosures (built without mortar) attest to wealth from gold mining and Indian Ocean trade via the Swahili coast.
- The Ethiopian Empire of Aksum's successor Christian kingdom (Solomonic dynasty, est. 1270) maintained Orthodox Christianity, claimed descent from Solomon and Sheba, and built the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.
- Hausa kingdoms in West Africa (Kano, Katsina, Zaria, etc.) were city-states linked by trade in textiles, leather, and slaves; Islam spread via Muslim traders without political conquest, blending with local religions.
- Feudalism in medieval Europe was a decentralized system of land-for-service: lords granted fiefs to vassals in exchange for military service, while manorialism organized peasant labor on agricultural estates.
- The Roman Catholic Church dominated medieval European life: it ran schools and universities, owned roughly one-third of arable land, collected tithes, and crowned monarchs, with the pope claiming authority over secular rulers.
- Magna Carta (1215), signed by King John of England, limited royal authority, established that the king was subject to law, and required consultation with barons before levying taxes — a foundational document for constitutional government.
- The Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christianity spread to the Slavic peoples; the Cyrillic alphabet (named after the missionary Saint Cyril) and Eastern Orthodox liturgy shaped Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian cultures.
- Pre-contact American civilizations included the Aztec Triple Alliance (Mexica), the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu), and the Mississippian mound-builders — large, stratified societies organized without the wheel, iron, or pack animals other than llamas.
- The Aztec Empire (Mexica, c. 1428-1521), centered at Tenochtitlan on Lake Texcoco, expanded through the Triple Alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan, sustained ~200,000 inhabitants via chinampa floating gardens, and demanded tribute from subject peoples.
- The Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu, c. 1438-1533) stretched ~4000 km along the Andes from modern Colombia to Chile, linked by ~40,000 km of stone roads, used a quipu knotted-cord recording system, and required mit'a labor service from subjects.
- Cahokia, near modern St. Louis, was a Mississippian mound-building city of ~10,000-20,000 people at its peak (c. 1050-1200), the largest urban center north of Mexico before European contact.
- The Silk Roads were overland trade routes from China through Central Asia to the Mediterranean, carrying silk, porcelain, spices, and ideas; they peaked during the Mongol Pax Mongolica (c. 1250-1350) when a single political system secured travel.
- Caravanserais were roadside inns spaced roughly one day's journey apart along the Silk Roads and trans-Saharan routes, offering food, water, lodging, and protected stables for merchants and their pack animals.
- The Indian Ocean trade network connected East Africa, Arabia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China, powered by predictable monsoon winds that allowed seasonal voyages — northeast monsoon Nov-March, southwest monsoon Apr-Oct.
- Maritime technologies enabling Afro-Eurasian trade c. 1200-1450 included the lateen sail (triangular, sailing into wind), the magnetic compass (Chinese origin), astrolabe (Greek refined by Arabs), and the dhow with stitched-plank hull.
- Swahili city-states (Mombasa, Kilwa, Mogadishu, Zanzibar) along the East African coast were cosmopolitan trading hubs blending Bantu and Arab influences; the Swahili language is Bantu in grammar with heavy Arabic loanwords.
- Ibn Battuta (1304-1369), a Moroccan Muslim jurist, traveled ~75,000 miles over 30 years through Dar al-Islam from West Africa to China, writing the Rihla, a major source on 14th-century Afro-Eurasian society.
- Marco Polo (1254-1324), a Venetian merchant, traveled to the court of Kublai Khan and dictated The Travels of Marco Polo, popularizing knowledge of Asia in Europe; later Europeans (including Columbus) read it as inspiration.
- The Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan and his successors (c. 1206-1368) became the largest contiguous land empire in history, stretching from Korea to Hungary at its peak, conquering through superior cavalry tactics, archery, and terror.
- The Pax Mongolica (c. 1250-1350) was a period of relative stability across Eurasia under Mongol rule that enabled safe travel, intensified Silk Road trade, and accelerated the diffusion of gunpowder, paper, and the Black Death.
- Mongol khanates after the empire's fragmentation: Yuan Dynasty in China, Ilkhanate in Persia, Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, and Golden Horde in Russia. Each adopted local cultures (Buddhism in Yuan, Islam in Ilkhanate and Golden Horde).
- The Black Death (bubonic plague), spread along Mongol trade routes from Central Asia to Europe (1347-1351), killed an estimated 30-50% of Europe's population, disrupted feudalism by raising peasant wages, and weakened the Catholic Church's prestige.
- Banking innovations enabling Afro-Eurasian trade included bills of exchange (avoided carrying coin over distance), the hawala system in the Islamic world, and the Chinese flying cash; early double-entry bookkeeping appeared in Italian city-states.
- Trans-Saharan trade carried gold from West African mines (Bambuk, Bure) north and salt from the Sahara south, with caravans of camels (introduced from Arabia in the early centuries CE) crossing the desert via oases like Taghaza.
- The introduction of the saddle and camel into the Sahara made trans-Saharan trade economically viable; a single camel could carry ~250 kg for ~40 km/day and survive over a week without water.
- The 'Gunpowder Empires' (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal) used artillery and firearms (introduced from China via Mongols) to centralize power, defeat steppe nomads, and conquer large territories — a major shift in Eurasian warfare.
- The Ottoman Empire (c. 1299-1922), founded by Osman in Anatolia, captured Constantinople in 1453 under Mehmed II (ending the Byzantine Empire), peaked under Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566), and ruled lands across SE Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
- The devshirme was an Ottoman institution that conscripted Christian boys (mostly Balkan) for forced conversion to Islam and elite imperial service, including the Janissary infantry corps and palace administration.
- The Ottoman millet system granted religious communities (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Christian, Jewish, etc.) autonomy in personal law and education under their own leaders, in exchange for paying the jizya tax.
- The Safavid Empire (1501-1736), founded by Shah Ismail I in Persia, made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion — a religious schism with Sunni Ottomans that shaped Middle Eastern conflict for centuries.
- The Mughal Empire (1526-1857), founded by Babur (a descendant of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan) at the Battle of Panipat, was a Muslim dynasty ruling Hindu-majority India; Akbar (r. 1556-1605) abolished jizya and promoted religious tolerance.
- Akbar's religious syncretism produced the Din-i Ilahi ('Divine Faith'), a small court-religion blending Islamic, Hindu, Christian, and Zoroastrian elements; he also ended the jizya tax and married a Rajput Hindu princess for political alliance.
- Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) was the last great Mughal emperor; his strict Sunni policies (reinstated jizya, destroyed Hindu temples) alienated subjects and contributed to imperial fragmentation after his death.
- The Taj Mahal (built 1632-1653 in Agra) was commissioned by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal; it exemplifies Indo-Islamic architecture fusing Persian, Indian, and Ottoman influences.
- The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) overthrew Mongol Yuan rule, restored Han Chinese governance, rebuilt the Great Wall in its current stone form, sponsored Zheng He's voyages (1405-1433), and made the civil service exam the primary path to office.