Skip to ContentGo to accessibility page
OpenStax Logo
World History Volume 2, from 1400

Key Terms

World History Volume 2, from 1400Key Terms

Key Terms

Balfour Declaration
a 1917 statement by British foreign secretary Alfred Balfour publicly supporting the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine
Beer Hall Putsch
a 1923 attempt by Adolf Hitler and his followers to take over the city of Munich
collectivization
the taking over of agriculture by a national government
fascism
a political movement focused on transforming citizens into committed nationalists striving for unity and racial purity to remedy a perceived national decline
Five-Year Plans
domestic plans adopted by the Soviet Union in the 1930s to target industrial and agricultural output goals that were usually unrealistic
flapper
woman of the 1920s who embraced an independent lifestyle while wearing shorter skirts and hairstyles
gold standard
a monetary system in which the value of a country’s currency is tied directly to the value of gold
gross domestic product (GDP)
the value of all the goods and services a country produces in one year
Guomindang
the Chinese Nationalist Party founded by Sun Yat-sen and later led by Chiang Kai-shek
Irish Free State
a state formed by the twenty-six southern counties in Ireland and later called Ireland
Kellogg-Briand Pact
a 1928 treaty signed by more than sixty countries to renounce war as a foreign policy tool
League of Nations
a multinational organization created by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles to promote the goal of collective security
Long March
a northward march of communist supporters led by Mao Zedong that saved them from extermination by the Guomindang
mandate system
a system in which control of an area was transferred from one government to another under the oversight of the League of Nations
New Deal
a U.S. program of economic reform under Franklin Roosevelt that created work-relief programs
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Lenin’s policy that introduced some aspects of capitalism in response to hardships and growing discontent among the Russian people
New Negro movement
a movement that developed in the 1920s as African Americans agitated for increased civil rights
Pan-African movement
a movement based on the idea that all people in Africa could work together to achieve greater independence
reparations
monetary payments to be made to the Allied nations by Germany to compensate for destruction they suffered in the war
Salt March
a two-hundred-mile march led by Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi in India in 1930 to protest the British prohibition on collecting salt and the heavy taxes on its purchase
Schutzstaffel (SS)
German Nazi paramilitary organization designed for security and intimidation
Sinn Féin
a political party organized in 1905 that argued for greater sovereignty for Ireland
socialist realism
an artistic movement in the Soviet Union that took the worker as a subject and was about patriotism as much as art
suffragist
a person who protested in favor of women’s right to vote
totalitarianism
a form of government in which the state controls all aspects of a person’s life
Treaty of Versailles
a 1919 treaty that formally ended World War I, redrew the map of Europe, and created the League of Nations
PreviousNext
Order a print copy
Citation/Attribution
Reuse and redistribution of this content in digital or print format:
  • This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's prior written permission.
  • This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which means that you can reuse and modify the material only for noncommercial purposes, must attribute OpenStax, and must distribute any derivative works under the same license.
  • Any commercial printing of this textbook, including using a local or custom printer, must be approved by OpenStax, and proper citation provided.
  • OpenStax-copyrighted images, activities, assessments, and similar components of this book are subject to the same licensing – CC-BY-NC-SA. They can be used for noncommercial purposes with attribution. Commercial use requires permission.
  • Permission requests: Anyone who intends to incorporate this content (including text, images, and other components) into large language models, use it in AI offerings, use it commercially (including in print), and/or has questions about another use case is welcome to complete our reuse request form.
Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/1-introduction

  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial digital format, then for every page that includes OpenStax content, you must license the derivative work under the same CC-BY-NC-SA license as the original, and include on every digital page view the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/1-introduction

Citation information

The information below includes the information needed to generate citations in most major styles (APA, MLA, etc.); you must reformat and organize the information as needed to fit the requirements of the style. Use the information below to generate a citation. We recommend using a citation tool such as this one.

© Apr 23, 2026 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo, and Rice University name, and Rice University logo trademarks, or wordmarks are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.