AP World Unit 1 Study Guide

Technological Inventions of China

Champa Rice: Champa rice was first in Vietnam, and Vietnam offered it to China as tribute. Champa rice is fast ripening, drought-resistant, and healthier rice. This led to the increase and strengthening of the Chinese population and economy.

Gun Powder: Gunpowder was invented during the Song Dynasty, which was the first explosive invention. The Song Dynasty made the first guns, strengthening their military force.

Printing Press: Contrary to popular belief, Gutenburg was not the first individual to invent the printing press. China was the first to implement woodblock printing, which led to an increase of books and more availability of literature.

Grand Canal: This played a huge role in unifying south and north China. It, obviously, made it much easier for the transportation of grain.

Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism

Confucianism: This is an ancient Chinese philosophy that stressed ethics and morality. Filial piety is part of confucianism. Confucianism + Bureaucracy + Dynasties led to a strong foundation in China. It evolved into Neo-Confucianism, which brought back the traditional ways and lessened the rights of women. Neo Confucianism is a combination of daoism, confucianism, and Buddhism.

Buddhism: Buddhism is a religion that follows the way of their founder, Buddha. While it originated in India, it spread to southeast Asia making it one of the most popular religions. It spread through Buddhist monks who traveled to southeast asia preaching their religion. In southeast Asia, there were many types of Buddhism, like Zen-Buddhism, which stresses on spirituality. Like aforementioned, Buddhism merged with confucianism and daoism later on.

Hinduism: Hinduism is a polytheistic religion that originated in India with no known founder. Hindu’s believe in a variety of things such as karma, reincarnation, and the caste system. Hinduism did not spread much to southeast Asia.

What is continuity?

Continuity refers to things that stayed constant, or the same over time. An example of continuity is the maintenance and prevalence of the caste system throughout Indian history.

Chinese Bureaucracy: Dynastic Cycle, Mandate of Heaven, Meritocracy

Mandate of Heaven: The mandate of heaven is a Chinese political philosophy that legitimized the leadership of a king. Essentially, it was a belief that if one had the mandate of heaven they are a rightful ruler; however, if a disaster occurs like an earthquake during an emperor’s rule it is deemed that they lost the “mandate of heaven.”

Dynastic Cycle: The dynastic cycle is the pattern of which emperors come and go in ancient China.

First there is an original emperor who usually has low taxes and feeds his people.
Then after his passing, his son will come to power.
1. But since he did not work for it, usually, they increase taxes and do not feed their people.
Then a natural disaster or a bad event will occur (obviously not under their control).
Now, a new emperor will come and say that they have the mandate of heaven, and the current emperor lost it.
After that, a war will occur.
The new emperor will prevail because more people favor him.
Finally, there’s a new emperor and the cycle continues.

Meritocracy: China had a meritocracy system in place, so that the individuals who were the most meritorious or intellectual had the most land. However, this system was flawed because those who were not able to get land and be better off couldn’t become intelligent since they don’t have the resources. The scholar gentry were the educated, land owning aristocrats in China.

Consequences of new food.

New crops often had an impact on land use and population growth and distribution. In some areas, people found ways to sustain abundant production; in others, overuse of the land led to environmental degradation. For example, Champa Rice in China was distributed in China and met the needs of the growing population.

Manorialism vs. Feudalism.

Feudalism: The system where knights fought and labored for the king in exchange for protection and land.

Manorialism: A system similar to feudalism but in the more local level; it’s best defined as the system where serfs worked and fought for their landowning noble/vassal (lord) in exchange for land and protection.

A manor, where the serfs worked and resided and the lords resided, was self sufficient. However, due to this, there was a lack of innovation since all needs were met.

The fundamental difference between the two is that feudalism is the “higher up” relationship between the king and his knights, whereas manorialism is the more local relationship between serfs and lords.

Taxes and Tributes in different regions.

Taxes: The main purpose for taxes was that there would be more money in circulation which would yield economic growth.

Tributes: A tribute is a tax paid from a land that was conquered to show respect to the conquerors. Tributes were paid to China from Japan, Vietnam, and Korea to honor China. This showed China’s immense strength and power.

Jizya: This is the tax/tribute system Islamic empires instituted to conquered lands. Arab muslims did not have to pay any tax; however, converts (non-arabs/mawali) had to pay some tax followed by people of the book (Dhimmi), everyone else, and slaves. The amount of tax each group had to pay is respective to when they were mentioned. This was also their social structure.

Serfs: They were the labored peasants in the feudal/manorial system in medieval europe. While they were not slaves, they were tied to land and could not marry without their lord’s approval. Serfs in medieval Europe got protection from vassals; however, peasants did not. That’s the distinction between the two.

The main social structure in medieval europe was manorialism (feudalism was mainly a political structure.) Manorialism was defined already, but it’s a system similar to feudalism but in the more local level; it’s best defined as the system where peasants worked and fought for their landowning lord in exchange for land and protection.

In the Holy Roman Empire, they had the “three estates” which consisted of: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work.

Chinese Social Structure: The social structure in China was based on how well you represent china. Obviously, the emperor was at the top followed by the Scholar Gentry, which was the educated, landowning class of china, and below them were general workers. The lowest of the low were merchants because they did not add much value to China’s already thriving economy.

Japanese Social Structure: Although it was briefly mentioned, Japan has a feudal system which is very similar to European feudalism, but it gave more power to the nobles (daimyos).

Islamic Empires: The islamic empire was the first empire to be based on religion. The power structure is based on “how close you are to islam.” 1. Arab muslims, 2. Converted muslims (mawali), 3. People of the book (dhimmi), 4. Everyone else, 5. Slaves. Unlike China, merchants were looked at in a brighter light because their economy was dependant on trade.

South Asian Empires: The caste system was the predominant social structure in India. Muslims merchants and travelers did find their place in the caste system based on their occupation (sub-castes).

American Civilizations: The Missipians had a matrilineal society, which is kinship around the mother.

The Aztecs had a theocratic political structure, and a calpulli system where they organized individuals into 7 different groups. These groups were like villages with their own ruling families.

The Incans were split into 4 provinces and were controlled by the ruling family. When the father died, the eldest son took power; the rest of them got his money. This let the Incas grow and expand.

African Civilizations: These civilizations were clan based, so the social structure was dependent on the clan or family you were born into. Age was very important; younger people had to respect their elders. Slavery has a long history in Africa.

Europe: Like mentioned many times above, Europe had feudalism and manorialism. The holy roman empire instituted the system known as the “three estates”.

Asian Luxury Goods

China traded primarily luxury goods like gold, porcelain, and silk. These items were traded to regions like the Middle East and were the most popular goods from this region (especially porcelain and silk). The trade of these goods caused the Silk Road to incline to trade more luxury items rather than ordinary goods.

Dhimmi

Dhimmi: This is the term given to individuals in islamic lands that were the “people of the book,” meaning they were jewish or christian. Islamic Empires and caliphs allowed them to practice their religion as it was monotheistic and abrahamic (tolerance). However, they were required to pay tax (jizya) to the caliphate in exchange for keeping their religion and getting protected by the caliph’s military.

Incan Technological Advancements

Carpa Nan: One of the most famous Incan advancements were their very large road systems. They had two road systems, one north and one south, approximately 10,000 miles. They had both mountain roads and coastal roads. This yields the potency of the Incan empire, and these roads facilitated the movement of armies, people, and goods. However, they had limited long-distance trade held by government monopoly.

Quipo: These are “knotted ropes”, but are often referred to as “talking ropes.” This was a non-written form of recording keeping.

Waruwaru: Mechanism to prevent flooding of crops, and store water for dry periods. Terrace farming.

They also introduced taxes.

Aztec Technological Advancements

Interactions with the environment are key to the creation of Tenochtitlan and the health and well being of the empire.

Chinampas: This was an agricultural method used by the Aztecs, where they would construct floating islands by dredging up soil from the bottom of lakes. Using this method, there were up to 7 crop yields a year. This led to an increase of population and an adequate food source for the people.

The Aztecs built land on lakes (their capital Tenochtitlan (modern day Mexico City) is on water). Because of this, the land is now sinking at a constant rate.

Regional vs Centralized Government:

Regional Government: This is a government where each independent region or area governs itself and maintains their own principalities. It is more a council of governments.

Centralized Government: A centralized government is where the legislative and executive power is concentrated centrally at a higher level rather than being spread out through regions.

India had a regional government. From the very beginning, there were chunks of lands with their own set of rules and languages. This is because of the mountain range geographically splitting them up. That is why north and south India are very different from each other, mostly due to geographical isolation. South India was more stable (Vijayanagara Empire), whereas North India was not (Rjaput Kingdoms). Due to the lack of centralization, they were vulnerable. India was only occasionally united as a single state.

During the time of Muhammad, the Arabian Peninsula was split up into various tribes, which created a society based on violence and survivorship. But after the spread of Islam, the Umayyads, Abbasids, Turks etc. all had a centralized government. The Delhi sultanate (south Indian land taken over by Muslims), which created interaction between Islam and Hinduism, was also a centralized government.

Because of China’s merit-based bureaucracy and dynasties, China is also considered to have a centralized government. They had a very strong centralized government, which made them powerful and influential.

African empires and kingdoms, like Indian ones, did not have centralized governments. They had stateless societies, meaning they lacked borders.

Trade in Africa

The increasing trade helped northern parts of Africa. African empires traded primarily with Arab Merchants from the middle east, and because of this, Islam spread quickly throughout Africa. Africans traded salt, gold, slaves, and ivory (salt was more valuable than gold). Trade was mainly on the trans-Saharan route, which had taxing checkpoints that funded the army of Ghana. Because of trade, many African societies flourished, and many converted to Islam (all the regions became predominantly muslim besides Ethiopia). Swahili Africans traded with Arab Merchants. Swahili is a combination of Bantu language and Arabic.

Trade From Asia

The Chinese traded porcelain, silk, and cotton on the silk road to Arab and Indian merchants. Through this many religions spread such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

Indian ocean trade was very important because it became the way of the “future”. Little cities developed as trading centers and they were controlled by muslim merchants. Indian ocean trade enabled trade from India to the Islamic world, China, East Africa, and Persia. Indian merchants traded spices, gold, and mineral fuels.

Sindh was the border between the Caliphate and India, so the trade occurred there. Because of this Hinduism and Islam were influenced by each other (cultural diffusion).

Bantu Migration

The Bantu speaking people of Inland Africa (modern day Nigeria) migrated throughout Africa and had a huge effect on the continent as a whole. These people traveled to eastern and southern parts of the continent for hundreds of years. The effects of the Bantu migration is the spread of the bantu language, culture, and agricultural practices.

Women in all the religions we talked about.

Neo Confucianism/Chinese Philosophies as a whole: This brought back traditional values and suppressed the rights of women in China. Women were to defer men. It was believed that to get married a woman must have a small foot, so they started binding feet.

Islam: Islamic customs were adapted from past customs. Women had to veil themselves with a hijab. Women could study and read, just not around non-family males. Muhammad raised the status of women in Arabia. Women were allowed to inherit property, work, remarry, and divorce. However, through urbanization the rights of women in Islam started fading. The practice of the “harem” was instituted; women were restricted to one part of the house consisting of other women, children, and sterile male guards.

Hinduism: Just like Islam, hinduism did not restrict women until urbanization transpired. Women lost their rights and were confined to a separate social sphere. The “satti” practice was commonly engaged in; when a woman’s husband died, the women would also unalive themselves.

Buddhism: Only briefly mentioned, not much said about the role of women.

Christianity: Women’s roles were fairly equal to mens; however, men still held the majority of authority.

Mita System

The Incans had a special tribute system called the Mita system. This type of tribute system was based on manual labor rather than payment. Through this system, they were able to construct their large road systems.

Cahokia

Cahokia is where the Mississippians were located. Cahokia is modern day St. Louis and was the place where the Mississippians built large earthen mounds.

Sufism

Sufism is best described as islamic mysticism. They focused on the purification of the soul, through interesting methods like dancing and singing. Because of sufi mystics/missionaries going around India and other regions telling stories etc., Islam quickly spread in those regions.

Anasazi

The Anasazis were the Chaco and Meso Verde people. They lived without wood and made homes of clay. They were a north american tribe, and fairly large in size.