- balance of power
- a situation in which competing nations have approximately equal military power
- black legend
- the myth, mostly promoted by English writers, that the Spanish treated Native Americans far more harshly than other European colonizers
- bourgeoisie
- the social class whose members owned the means of production and whose main goal was the preservation of capital
- British Raj
- the period from 1858 to 1947 when the British government directly ruled India through the Viceroy of India
- Canton system
- a system that allowed Europeans to trade with China only if they worked through the Chinese guilds that enjoyed monopoly rights to the tea and silk trades
- capitalism
- an economic system in which private individuals and companies own the means of production, and free (unregulated) markets set the value of most goods and services based on supply and demand
- charter
- an official authorization to conduct a major economic activity such as the creation of a colony
- cultural accommodation
- the practice of integrating a culture into the dominant society without forcing it to fully integrate and adopt all the dominant culture’s components
- economic imperialism
- the practice of dominating a foreign country economically
- indirect rule
- a system in which colonial powers cooperated with Indigenous elites and allowed local leaders to exercise some authority
- Industrial Revolution
- the period during which societies transitioned away from a focus on agriculture and handicraft production to manufacturing, primarily with machines
- laissez-faire economics
- the theory that market forces alone should drive the economy and that governments should refrain from direct intervention in or moderation of the economic system
- Luddites
- British workers in the early nineteenth century who resisted industrialization
- Marxism
- the idea, espoused by Karl Marx, that recognizing class struggle is central to understanding societies
- mechanization
- the use of machines to replace the labor of animals and humans
- proletariat
- the landless working class
- sepoys
- Indian soldiers who served the British in India
- socialism
- an economic system in which the public owns the means of production