A
- Allies the nations that united to oppose Germany and Austria-Hungary, originally, Russia, France, and Britain
- al-Qaeda an Islamic terrorist organization financed and led by militant Saudi Arabian national Osama bin Laden and responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001
- anarchism an ideology advocating that government be abolished
- apartheid a South African policy of racial segregation that ended in 1991
- Arab Spring a popular movement calling for government reform and democracy that spread across the Arab world in 2011
- armistice a cease-fire agreement
- astrolabe a device for navigation that used constellations as a guide and enabled mariners to find their north–south position on the earth’s surface
- Atlantic Charter a statement of British and U.S. goals and objectives for the world after World War II; negotiated by British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt
B
- balance of power a situation in which competing nations have approximately equal military power
- Balfour Declaration a 1917 statement by British foreign secretary Alfred Balfour publicly supporting the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine
- Balkan League an alliance created in 1912 by Greece, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Serbia against the Ottoman Empire
- Beer Hall Putsch a 1923 attempt by Adolf Hitler and his followers to take over the city of Munich
- Berlin Airlift an operation carried out by Great Britain and the United States to supply West Berlin from the air during the Soviet Union’s blockade of West Berlin
- black legend the myth, mostly promoted by English writers, that the Spanish treated Native Americans far more harshly than other European colonizers
- bloc a group of countries united for a common purpose
- Bolsheviks a radical majority faction of Russia’s Social Democratic Party led by Vladimir Lenin
- bourgeoisie the social class whose members owned the means of production and whose main goal was the preservation of capital
- Boxers members of the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, an anti-foreign secret society in northern China
- British Raj the period from 1858 to 1947 when the British government directly ruled India through the Viceroy of India
- bulletin board system (BBS) pre-internet computer networks that consisted of personal computers connected with each other via modems and phone lines
C
- Cádiz Cortes the central Spanish junta established in the city of Cádiz that coordinated Spanish resistance to the French occupation
- caliph an Islamic title designating a spiritual and secular leader
- caliphate an area under the control of a Muslim ruler called a caliph
- 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
- caravansary an inn funded by the state or wealthy individuals where travelers could spend the night and store their goods securely
- caravel a fifteenth-century Portuguese sailing ship
- Central powers a World War I coalition that included the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman Empires
- charter an official authorization to conduct a major economic activity such as the creation of a colony
- chattel slavery a form of slavery in which one person is owned by another as a piece of property
- Christian humanism a movement, also known as northern Renaissance humanism, that stressed the study of the works of Greece and Rome and the early Christian fathers to awaken individual piety
- chronological approach an approach to history that follows a timeline from ancient to modern
- climate change broad changes in temperature, weather, storm activity, wind patterns, sea levels, and other influences on the planet
- Cold War a contest for ideological, social, economic, technological, and military supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union
- collectivization the taking over of agriculture by a national government
- colonialism a practice in which one group of people attempts to establish control over another group, usually for purposes of economic exploitation
- Columbian Exchange the flow of plants, animals, and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres
- Committee of Public Safety the provisional government of revolutionary France from 1793 to 1794
- Congo Free State a personal colony of Belgium’s King Leopold II where infamous abuse of African laborers took place
- Congress of Vienna an 1814–1815 meeting of Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria to restore the balance of power and assert principles of conservatism
- conquistadors Spanish explorers in the Americas during the Age of Exploration
- conservatism a political ideology that emerged in reaction to the freedoms associated with the revolutions of the eighteenth century and advocated submitting to government authority and giving religious doctrine a central role in maintaining social order and stability
- containment the West’s Cold War policy goal of confining communism to the Soviet Union and the nations of Eastern Europe
- Continental Congresses two assemblies of elected colonial representatives that met in Philadelphia in 1774 and 1775, the second time to adopt the powers of government and approve the Declaration of Independence from Britain
- contract labor a system in which people sign contracts promising to perform work in exchange for a fee
- creoles in Spanish colonies, American-born White people of European descent
- Cuban Missile Crisis the 1962 confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba
- 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
D
- debt bondage a system in which a person who owes money works (or provides someone else to work) for the creditor until the debt has been repaid
- deductive reasoning a form of logical reasoning that begins with a general statement and applies it to specific conclusions
- deindustrialization a decline in a nation’s or region’s industrial activity
- demographic transition a reduction in family size in the late 1800s caused by falling birth rates in industrialized nations
- détente the relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s
- devshirme the system of recruiting Christian boys from the Balkans to be enslaved, converted to Islam, and trained to serve the Ottoman sultan
- dhimmi a non-Muslim living under Muslim rule
- dhow a ship made of coconut-wood planks sewn together with coconut fiber and equipped with lateen sails
- Directory an executive council of five men established by the Convention in France to replace the Committee of Public Safety after the decline of the Reign of Terror
- domino theory the belief that the neighbors of a communist country were likely to become communist themselves
E
- Easter Rising the 1916 rebellion of Irish Nationalists against the British in Dublin
- economic imperialism the practice of dominating a foreign country economically
- empiricism a philosophical concept based on the belief that all knowledge derives from sensory experience
- encomienda a system of coerced labor based on a grant by the Spanish Crown that entitled conquistadors to the labor of specified numbers of Indigenous people
- ENIAC the first programmable electronic digital computer, built by the United States during World War II
- enlightened despot an absolutist ruler influenced by the principles of the Enlightenment
- Espionage Act a 1917 act passed in the United States that made anti-war propaganda illegal
- Estates General a legislative assembly of the three estates, or orders, of French society: the clergy, the nobility, and commoners
- European Union (EU) a single-market zone created in 1993 to allow the free movement of goods, services, money, and people among European member states
- Executive Order 9066 a presidential order that led to relocation and internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during the war
- export economy an economy that primarily provides raw materials for use by other nations
F
- factory in the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a trading post with offices and warehouses
- fascism a political movement focused on transforming citizens into committed nationalists striving for unity and racial purity to remedy a perceived national decline
- Final Solution the Nazi plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe; developed by senior bureaucrats at the Wannsee Conference
- 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 a woman of the 1920s who embraced an independent lifestyle while wearing shorter skirts and hairstyles
- Force Publique a native army commanded by European officers to enforce brutal discipline in the Congo Free State
G
- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) a 1947 trade agreement among twenty-three countries to reinforce postwar economic recovery, later replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
- general will a concept in political philosophy by which the state can be legitimate only if it is guided by the will of the people as a whole
- gens de couleur libres a French term that referred to free people of color in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti
- Germanic Confederation an alliance of thirty-nine mostly German-speaking states developed to replace the Holy Roman Empire in 1815
- German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact a 1939 agreement between Germany and the USSR in which the two nations agreed not to attack one another or to assist other nations in attacking the other and to divide portions of eastern Europe between them
- Girondins a moderate faction of the Jacobin political club in revolutionary France
- glasnost a Soviet policy encouraging openness, which allowed those who were angry to be critical of the government
- global citizen a person who sees themselves as responsible to a world community rather than only a national one
- global warming the general rise in Earth’s temperature that scientists have observed over approximately the past two hundred years
- globalization the interconnectedness of societies and economies throughout the world as a result of trade, technology, and adoption and sharing of various aspects of culture
- gold standard a monetary system in which the value of a country’s currency is tied directly to the value of gold
- great man theory the view that it is enough to study the deeds and impact of important leaders to paint an accurate picture of the past
- green parties political parties organized around environmental concerns
- Grito de Dolores the “cry” of Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo’s declaration of rebellion made in the town of Dolores on September 16, 1810
- Grito do Ipiranga the “cry" of Ipiranga, Pedro I’s declaration of Brazilian independence, made at the Ipiranga River in 1822
- gross domestic product (GDP) the value of all the goods and services a country produces in one year
- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution the 1964 resolution that gave President Lyndon Johnson permission to retaliate against North Vietnamese attacks and to act first to defend U.S. lives
- Guomindang the Chinese Nationalist Party founded by Sun Yat-sen and later led by Chiang Kai-shek
H
- hajj the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca
- hangul the Korean alphabet, introduced by King Sejong in 1446
- historical empathy the ability to see the past on its own terms, without judgment or the imposition of our own modern-day attitudes
- historiography the study of how historians have already interpreted the past
- Holocaust the Nazi genocide that resulted in the murder of more than six million Jewish people and at least three million members of other, non-Jewish minority groups
I
- iconography the use of images and symbols in art
- imperialism the policy of gaining direct or indirect control over parts of the world with low-cost resources and no competing mass-produced goods
- indentured servants people bound by a contract to work for someone for an agreed-upon number of years
- indirect rule a system in which colonial powers cooperated with Indigenous elites and allowed local leaders to exercise some authority
- inductive reasoning a form of logical reasoning that gathers specific examples and observations to arrive at a broad generalization
- indulgences a way to reduce or cancel the time after death during which people needed to suffer in purgatory to atone for their sins before reaching heaven
- Industrial Revolution the period during which societies transitioned away from a focus on agriculture and handicraft production to manufacturing, primarily with machines
- intellectual history the history of ideas, which looks at the philosophies that drive people to make certain choices
- intendancy system the centralizing administrative system in Spanish America whereby local governments were run by governors
- Irish Free State a state formed by the twenty-six southern counties in Ireland and later called Ireland
- Islamic State a fundamentalist and militant Islamic group that grew in power and waged a war in Iraq and Syria following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
J
- Jacobins a radical political club in revolutionary France that supported overthrowing the monarchy
- joint stock company a company in which numerous merchants pooled their money to fund a business venture like a trading voyage and shared both risk and profit
- juntas deliberative or administrative councils in Spain and Spanish America
K
- Kellogg-Briand Pact a 1928 treaty signed by more than sixty countries to renounce war as a foreign policy tool
L
- labor union an association that organizes workers of all kinds, both skilled and unskilled
- 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
- lateen sail a triangular-shaped sail that allows a boat to sail both with and into the wind
- League of Nations a multinational organization created by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles to promote the goal of collective security
- Lebensraum a German term meaning “living room” and referring to lands seized from countries in eastern Europe in which Adolf Hitler envisioned settling German families to supplant the native Slavic populations
- Lend-Lease Act U.S. legislation enacted to provide military assistance to nations important to its defense
- liberalism a political ideology that promotes freedom of expression, popular sovereignty, the protection of civil rights and private property, and representative government
- llaneros cowboys of the Venezuelan plains
- Long March a northward march of communist supporters led by Mao Zedong that saved them from extermination by the Guomindang
- Luddites British workers in the early nineteenth century who resisted industrialization
M
- 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
- Manhattan Project the U.S. project to build an atomic bomb
- Marshall Plan a plan extending financial assistance to European nations to help them rebuild after World War II
- 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
- Meiji Restoration the period beginning in 1868 when, under Emperor Meiji, Japan began to industrialize
- mercantilism an economic theory in which a nation’s power depended on the wealth it gained by exporting goods of greater value than it imported, and in which a gain for one nation was a loss for another
- Middle Passage the middle (or second) leg of the three-legged triangular trade that carried enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas
- millet system the system through which non-Muslim religious communities were allowed to regulate their internal affairs according to their own religious laws
- Monroe Doctrine a principle of U.S. foreign policy that warned European nations to refrain from interfering with independent countries in the Western Hemisphere
- Mountain a radical faction of the Jacobin club in revolutionary France that supported executing the king
- multinational corporation a corporate business entity that controls the production of goods and services in multiple countries
- Munich Pact an agreement reached in 1938 in which Czechoslovakia granted territorial concessions to Germany, Poland, and Hungary in the hopes that Adolf Hitler would cease his aggressions
N
- nationalism a political ideology that promotes the interests of the nation over international concerns and advocates the uniqueness and inherent superiority of the individual’s own country over others
- natural rights universal and inalienable rights that cannot be revoked or rescinded by human laws
- naturalism a literary style that emphasized realistic, detached, impersonal depictions of characters whose actions were molded by their environment in ways they often had no ability to control
- New Deal a U.S. program of economic reform under Franklin Roosevelt that created work-relief programs
- New Economic Policy 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
- Non-Aligned Movement a movement of nations that sought to remain outside the sphere of influence of both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War
- North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a 1992 trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico to reduce trade barriers and allow goods to flow freely
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a military alliance among the United States, Canada, and the countries of Western Europe
- Nuremberg Laws a series of laws promulgated in Germany in 1935, institutionalizing Nazi racial theories and discrimination against Jewish people
- Nuremberg Trials the formal postwar prosecution of German war crimes
O
- offshoring the process of moving some of a company’s operations overseas to access cheaper labor markets
- outsourcing the process of hiring outside contractors, sometimes abroad, to perform tasks a company once performed internally
P
- Pan-African movement a movement based on the idea that all people in Africa could work together to achieve greater independence
- Paris Agreement a 2015 treaty among members of the United Nations to limit global warming to less than 2°C (3.6°F) above levels from the time of industrialization
- penal labor forced labor assigned as punishment to those convicted of crimes
- peninsulares in Spanish colonies, European-born White people from Spain
- Percentages Agreement the agreement between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin about how to divide political influence in Eastern Europe after the war
- perestroika the restructuring of the Soviet state and economy under Mikhail Gorbachev
- Plan de Iguala Agustín de Iturbide’s proclamation of independence creating a constitutional monarchy and protecting both the Catholic Church and Europeans living in Mexico
- pogroms violent attacks on Jewish people in the Russian empire
- popular sovereignty the idea that government should exist only by the consent of the governed
- primary cause the most immediate reason an event occurred
- primary source a document, object, or other source material from the time period under study
- Proclamation Line the boundary of westward settlement that Britain marked out in its thirteen North American colonies
- progressive history a school of thought that views history as a straight line to a specific and more democratic destination
- proletariat the landless working class
- proxy wars wars fought by allies of the Soviet Union and the United States to avoid risking a direct conflict between the two superpowers during the Cold War
- public sphere shared spaces that enabled the exchange of ideas and information outside the control of state and church, like coffeehouses and salons
R
- real wages wages measured in terms of the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with them
- realism a literary and artistic style that realistically depicted everyday life in the contemporary world
- Reign of Terror a period of the French Revolution during which the revolutionary government adopted repressive measures to prevent dissent
- reparations monetary payments to be made to the Allied nations by Germany to compensate for destruction they suffered in the war
- resource curse the problem that makes resource-rich developing countries prone to authoritarianism, high rates of conflict, and low rates of economic growth
- revisionism the process of altering our interpretation of historical events by adding new elements and perspectives
- rhetoric the way words are used and put together in speaking or writing
- Risorgimento an Italian term that refers to the unification of Italy
- romanticism an artistic movement formed in response to the Industrial Revolution that prized emotion and imagination and took as its subjects the themes of nature, the ordinary person, the exotic, the ancient, and the supernatural
S
- salons informal gatherings in the homes of wealthy aristocrats, generally hosted by women, that served as sites for the discussion of Enlightenment ideas and philosophies
- 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
- sans-culottes a French term that referred to radicals from the lower and working classes during the French Revolution
- satellite state a country controlled by another nation
- Schlieffen Plan a German war plan to sweep through Belgium and northern France before turning to Russia
- Schutzstaffel (SS) German Nazi paramilitary organization designed for security and intimidation
- Scramble for Africa the competition among European countries to establish colonies in Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- secondary source a document, object, or other source material written or created after the time period under study
- Sedition Act a 1918 act passed in the United States that forbade forms of speech considered disloyal to the war effort
- sepoys Indian soldiers who served the British in India
- sharia Islamic religious law
- shogunate a Japanese system in which a military leader, the shogun, and an aristocratic military elite, the samurai, ruled in place of the emperor
- Sikhism a monotheistic faith that combines elements of Hinduism and Islam, established in the Punjab region of northwestern India in the fifteenth century
- Silhak a late seventeenth-century Korean reform movement that promoted the study of the physical sciences and technology in order to solve practical problems
- Sinn Féin a political party organized in 1905 that argued for greater sovereignty for Ireland
- Slave Coast a section of African coast along the Bight of Benin, centered on the port city of Whydah and a major source of African people sold into slavery
- social constructs ideas such as class and gender created and accepted by the people in a society that influence the way they think and behave
- social democrat people who favor the creation of a socialist society through democratic means
- social history a field of history that looks at all classes and categories of people, not just elites
- socialism an economic system in which the public owns the means of production
- socialist realism an artistic movement in the Soviet Union that took the worker as a subject and was about patriotism as much as art
- Stamp Act an act of the British Parliament that imposed taxes on legal documents and other printed materials in its North American colonies in 1765
- Sudanic a term describing the region of West Africa south of the Sahara Desert
- suffragist a person who protested in favor of women’s right to vote
- Sufis Islamic mystics; practitioners of Sufism, the mystical expression of Islamic faith
- Sultanate of Women the period between the tenure of Hurrem Sultan in the mid-fifteenth century and the late seventeenth century, during which wives and mothers of the sultan were able to exert political power and influence at court
- Swahili a language that combines the grammar of African Bantu languages with a Bantu and Arabic vocabulary and is spoken in East Africa
- Sykes-Picot Agreement a secret agreement reached between France and Britain in 1916 to partition areas of the Middle East after the war
T
- Taylorism a system of management that sought to improve workers’ productivity by curbing wasteful movements
- The Great Game the contest between Britain and Russia to dominate central Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- the social contract an implicit agreement among members of a society to surrender their natural rights to the state, which is then charged with maintaining and protecting those rights
- total war a war fought using all available resources, with no restrictions on weapons or their targets
- totalitarianism a form of government in which the state controls all aspects of a person’s life
- trade diaspora communities societies established by merchants who initially traveled to a foreign country to do business and then settled there
- trade union an association that organizes workers in a particular craft or industry
- Treaty of Tordesillas a 1494 agreement awarding land to Portugal and Spain by dividing the Atlantic Ocean along a line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa
- Treaty of Versailles a 1919 treaty that formally ended World War I, redrew the map of Europe, and created the League of Nations
- triangular trade the trade in goods and enslaved people that took place between the Americas, Europe, and West Africa from the late fifteenth through the early nineteenth centuries
- Trinity Test the first successful U.S. test of an atomic bomb
- Triple Alliance a treaty of alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy
- Triple Entente a treaty of alliance between France, Russia, and Britain
- Truman Doctrine the promise of U.S. assistance to any country in danger of being overthrown by communism
- Twelvers members of a large Shia sect who believe the twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, will return, along with Jesus, to defeat evil on earth
U
- U-boats German submarines equipped with torpedoes that sank thousands of pounds of cargo over the course of World War I
- ulama a class of religious clerics and scholars who act as the primary interpreters of Islamic law
- ultranationalist movements organizations that support an extreme form of nationalism and often seek ethnically homogeneous homelands
- ummah the community of Muslims
- Undang-Undang Laut Melaka a Malaccan maritime law code, part of the Undang-Undang Melaka, governing the conduct of sailors and traveling merchants
V
- viceroyalty an administrative subdivision of the Spanish Empire, ruled by a direct representative of the king
- Virgin of Guadalupe the apparition of the Virgin Mary who is said to have appeared to the Aztec peasant Juan Diego and later became the national symbol and patron saint of Mexico
- Vodou a mix of Roman Catholic and indigenous West African religious practices popular in Haiti
W
- War Industries Board (WIB) a U.S. federal agency created in 1917 to control the economic and industrial output of factories in times of war
- Warsaw Pact a military and political alliance among the communist nations of Eastern Europe
- Women’s Land Army a British program to help women ensure enough foodstuffs were produced on farms while men served in the military
Z
- Zimmermann Telegram a 1917 telegram sent by Germany’s foreign minister offering an alliance with Mexico in return for Mexico causing disturbances along its U.S. border