The terms from the glossary in the back of The Earth and Its Peoples (Advanced Placement Edition), 3rd Edition - prep for the A.P. World History Exam.
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| 771611262 | Abbasid Caliphate | Descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, al-Abbas, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and ruled an Islamic empire from their capital in Baghdad (founded 762) from 750-1258. (p. 203) | |
| 771611263 | abolitionists | Men and women who agitated for a complete end to slavery. Abolitionist pressure ended the British transatlantic slave trade in 1808 and slavery in British colonies in 1834. In the United States the activities of abolitionists were one factor leading to the Civil War (1861-1865). (p. 610) | |
| 771611264 | acculturation | The adoption of the language, customs, values, and behaviors of host nations by immigrants. (p. 614) | |
| 771611265 | Acheh Sultanate | Muslim kingdom in northern Sumatra. Main center of Islamic expansion in Southeast Asia in the early seventeenth century, it declined after the Dutch seized Malacca from Portugal in 1641. (p. 504) | |
| 771611266 | Aden | Port city in the modern south Arabian country of Yemen. It has been a major trading center in the Indian Ocean since ancient times. (p. 342) | |
| 771611267 | African National Congress | An organization dedicated to obtaining equal voting and civil rights for black inhabitants of South Africa. Founded in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress, it changed its name in 1923. Though it was banned and its leaders were jailed for many years, it eventually helped bring majority rule to South Africa. (p. 799) | |
| 771611269 | Afrikaners | South Africans descended from Dutch and French settlers of the seventeenth century. Their Great Trek founded new settler colonies in the nineteenth century. Though a minority among South Africans, they held political power after 1910, imposing a system of racial segregation called apartheid after 1949. (p. 717) | |
| 771611271 | Agricultural Revolution(s) (ancient) | The change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E. Also known as the Neolithic Revolution. (pp. 8, 570) | |
| 771611273 | agricultural revolution (eighteenth century) | The transformation of farming that resulted in the eighteenth century from the spread of new crops, improvements in cultivation techniques and livestock breeding, and the consolidation of small holdings into large farms from which tenants and sharecroppers were forcibly expelled. (p. 570) | |
| 771611276 | Aguinaldo, Emilio (1869-1964) | Leader of the Filipino independence movement against Spain (1895-1898). He proclaimed the independence of the Philippines in 1899, but his movement was crushed and he was captured by the United States Army in 1901. (p. 725) | |
| 771611278 | Akbar I (1542-1605) | Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire in India (r. 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of conciliation with Hindus. (p. 500) | |
| 771611280 | Akhenaten | Egyptian pharaoh (r. 1353-1335 B.C.E.). He built a new capital at Amarna, fostered a new style of naturalistic art, and created a religious revolution by imposing worship of the sun-disk. The Amarna letters, largely from his reign, preserve official correspondence with subjects and neighbors. (p. 64) | |
| 771611282 | Alexander (356-323 B.C.E.) | King of Macedonia in northern Greece. Between 334 and 323 B.C.E. he conquered the Persian Empire, reached the Indus Valley, founded many Greek-style cities, and spread Greek culture across the Middle East. Later known as Alexander the Great. (p. 116) | |
| 771611284 | Alexandria | City on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt founded by Alexander. It became the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of the Ptolemies. It contained the famous Library and the Museum - a center for leading scientific and literary figures. Its merchants engaged in trade with areas bordering the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. (p. 117) | |
| 771611286 | Allende, Salvador (1908-1973) | Socialist politician elected president of Chile in 1970 and overthrown by the military in 1973. He died during the military attack. | |
| 779280536 | All-India Muslim League | Political organization founded in India in 1906 to defend the interests of India's Muslim minority. Led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it attempted to negotiate with the Indian National Congress. In 1940, the League began demanding a separate state for Muslims, to be called Pakistan. (See also Jinnah, Muhammad Ali.) (p. 803) | |
| 779280537 | amulet | Small charm meant to protect the bearer from evil. Found frequently in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, amulets reflect the religious practices of the common people. (p. 19) | |
| 779280538 | Amur River | This river valley was a contested frontier between northern China and eastern Russia until the settlement arranged in the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689). (p. 522) | |
| 779280539 | anarchists | Revolutionaries who wanted to abolish all private property and governments, usually by violence, and replace them with free associations of groups. (p. 691) | |
| 779280540 | Anasazi | Important culture of what is now the Southwest United States (1000-1300 C.E.). Centered on the Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Mesa Verde in Colorado, the Anasazi culture built multistory residences and worshipped in subterranean buildings called kivas. (p. 278) | |
| 779280541 | aqueduct | A conduit, either elevated or underground, using gravity to carry water from a source to a location - usually a city - that needed it. The Romans built many aqueducts in a period of substantial urbanization. (p. 135) | |
| 779280542 | Arawak | Amerindian peoples who inhabited the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean at the time of Columbus. (p. 381) | |
| 779280543 | Arkwright, Richard (1732-1792) | English inventor and entrepreneur who became the wealthiest and most successful textile manufacturer of the early Industrial Revolution. He invented the water frame, a machine that, with minimal human supervision, could spin many strong cotton threads at once. (p. 575) | |
| 779280544 | Armenia | One of the earliest Christian kingdoms, situated in eastern Anatolia and the western Caucasus and occupied by speakers of the Armenian language. (p. 190) | |
| 779280545 | Asante | African kingdom on the Gold Coast that expanded rapidly after 1680. Asante participated in the Atlantic economy, trading gold, slaves, and ivory. It resisted British imperial ambitions for a quarter century before being absorbed into Britain's Gold Coast colony in 1902. (p. 718) | |
| 779280546 | Ashikaga Shogunate (1336-1573) | The second of Japan's military governments headed by a shogun (a military ruler). Sometimes called the Muromachi Shogunate. (p. 320) | |
| 779280547 | Ashoka | Third ruler of the Mauryan Empire in India (r. 270-232 B.C.E.). He converted to Buddhism and broadcast his precepts on inscribed stones and pillars, the earliest surviving Indian writing. (p. 161) | |
| 779280548 | Asian Tigers | Collective name for South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore - nations that became economic powers in the 1970s and 1980s. (p. 856) | |
| 779280549 | Atahualpa (1502?-1533) | Last ruling Inca emperor of Peru. He was executed by the Spanish. (p. 398) | |
| 779280550 | Atlantic Circuit | The network of trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas that underlay the Atlantic system. (p. 469) | |
| 779280551 | Atlantic system | The network of trading links after 1500 that moved goods, wealth, people, and cultures around the Atlantic Ocean basin. (p. 458) | |
| 779280552 | Augustus (63 B.C.E. - 14 C.E.) | Honorific name of Octavian, founder of the Roman Principate, the military dictatorship that replaced the failing rule of the Roman Senate. After defeating all rivals, between 31 B.C.E. and 14 C.E. he laid the groundwork for several centuries of stability and prosperity in the Roman Empire. (p. 132) | |
| 779280553 | Auschwitz | Nazi extermination camp in Poland, the largest center of mass murder during the Holocaust. Close to a million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and others were killed there. (p. 788) | |
| 779280554 | ayllu | Andean lineage group or kin-based community. (p. 282) | |
| 779280555 | Aztecs | Also known as Mexica, the Aztecs created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax. (p. 275) | |
| 779280556 | Babylon | The largest and most important city in Mesopotamia. It achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite king Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C.E. and the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.E. (p. 14) | |
| 779280557 | balance of power | The policy in international relations by which, beginning in the eighteenth century, the major European states acted together to prevent any one of them from becoming too powerful. (p. 424) | |
| 779280558 | Balfour Declaration | Statement issued by Britain's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917 favoring the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. (p. 744) | |
| 779280559 | Bannermen | Hereditary military servants of the Qing Empire, in large part descendants of peoples of various origins who had fought for the founders of the empire. (p. 668) | |
| 779280560 | Bantu | Collective name of a large group of sub-Saharan African languages and of the peoples speaking those languages. (p. 188) | |
| 779280561 | Batavia | Fort established ca. 1619 as headquarters of Dutch East India Company operations in Indonesia; today the city of Jakarta. (p. 507) | |
| 779280562 | Battle of Midway | U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II. (p. 782) | |
| 779280563 | Battle of Omdurman | British victory over the Mahdi in the Sudan in 1898. General Kitchener led a mixed force of British and Egyptian troops armed with rapid-firing rifles and machine guns. (p. 712) | |
| 779280564 | Beijing | China's northern capital, first used as an imperial capital in 906 and now the capital of the People's Republic of China. (p. 310) | |
| 779280565 | Bengal | Region of northeastern India. It was the first part of India to be conquered by the British in the eighteenth century and remained the political and economic center of British India throughout the nineteenth century. The 1905 split of the province into predominantly Hindu West Bengal and predominantly Muslim East Bengal (now Bangladesh) sparked anti-British riots. (p. 802) | |
| 779280566 | Berlin Conference (1884-1885) | Conference that German chancellor Otto von Bismarck called to set rules for the partition of Africa. It led to the creation of the Congo Free State under King Leopold II of Belgium. (See also Bismarck, Otto von). (p. 716) | |
| 779280567 | Bhagavad-Gita | The most important work of Indian sacred literature, a dialogue between the great warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna on duty and the fate of the spirit. (p. 162) | |
| 779280568 | bin Laden, Usama | Saudi-born Muslim extremist who funded the al Qaeda organization that was responsible for several terrorist attacks, including those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. (p. 883) | |
| 779280569 | Bismarck, Otto von (1815-1898) | Chancellor (prime minister) of Prussia from 1862 until 1871, when he became chancellor of Germany. A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870) and was responsible for the creation of the German Empire in 1871. (p. 695) | |
| 779280570 | Black Death | An outbreak of bubonic plague that spread across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, carrying off vast numbers of persons. (p. 353) | |
| 779280571 | Bolívar, Simón (1783-1830) | The most important military leader in the struggle for independence in South America. Born in Venezuela, he led military forces there and in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. (p. 594) | |
| 779280572 | Bolsheviks | Radical Marxist political party founded by Vladmir Lenin in 1903. Under Lenin's leadership, the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917 during the Russian Revolution. (See also Lenin, Vladmir). (p. 744) | |
| 779280573 | Bonaparte, Napoleon | See Napoleon I. | |
| 779280574 | Bornu | A powerful West African kingdom at the southern edge of the Sahara in the Central Sudan, which was important in trans-Saharan trade and in the spread of Islam. Also known as Kanem-Bornu, it endured from the ninth century to the end of the nineteenth. (p. 480) | |
| 779280575 | bourgeoisie | In early modern Europe, the class of well-off town dwellers whose wealth came from manufacturing, finance, commerce, and allied professions. (p. 413) | |
| 779280576 | Brant, Joseph (1742-1807) | Mohawk leader who supported the British during the American Revolution. (p. 549) | |
| 779280577 | Brazza, Savorgnan de (1852-1905) | Franco-Italian explorer sent by the French government to claim part of equatorial Africa for France. Founded Brazzaville, capital of the French Congo, in 1880. (p. 714) | |
| 779280578 | British raj | The rule over much of South Asia between 1765 and 1947 by the East India Company and then by a British government. (p. 634) | |
| 779280579 | bubonic plague | A bacterial disease of fleas that can be transmitted by flea bites to rodents and humans; humans in late stages of the illness can spread the bacteria by coughing. Because of its very high mortality rate and the difficulty of preventing its spread, major outbreaks have created crises in many parts of the world. (See also Black Death.) (pp. 250, 302) | |
| 779280580 | Buddha (563-483 B.C.E.) | An Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama, who renounced his wealth and social position. After becoming "enlightened" (the meaning of Buddha) he enunciated the principles of Buddhism. This doctrine evolved and spread throughout India and to Southeast, East, and Central Asia. (See also Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism.) (p. 156) | |
| 779280581 | business cycles | Recurrent swings from economic hard times to recovery and growth, then back to hard times and a repetition of the sequence. (p. 586) | |
| 779280582 | Byzantine Empire | Historians' name for the eastern portion of the Roman Empire from the fourth century onward, taken from "Byzantion," an early name for Constantinople, the Byzantine capital city. The empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453. (See also Ottoman Empire.) (p. 138, 219) | |
| 784078551 | caliphate | Office established in succession to the Prophet Muhammad, to rule the Islamic empire; also the name of that empire. (See also Abbasid Caliphate; Sokoto Caliphate; Umayyad Caliphate.) (p. 201) | |
| 784078552 | capitalism | The economic system of large financial institutions—banks, stock exchanges, investment companies—that first developed in early modern Europe. Commercial capitalism, the trading system of the early modern economy, is often distinguished from industrial capitalism, the system based on machine production. (p. 468) | |
| 784078553 | caravel | A small, highly maneuverable three-masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish in the exploration of the Atlantic. (p. 384) | |
| 784078554 | Cárdenas, Lázaro (1895-1970) | President of Mexico (1934-1940). He brought major changes to Mexican life by distributing millions of acres of land to the peasants, bringing representatives of workers and farmers into the inner circles of politics, and nationalizing the oil industry. (p. 809) | |
| 784078555 | Carthage | City located in present-day Tunisia, founded by Phoenicians ca. 800 B.C.E. It became a major commercial center and naval power in the western Mediterranean until defeated by Rome in the third century B.C.E. (p. 81) | |
| 784078556 | Caste War | A rebellion of the Maya people against the government of Mexico in 1847. It nearly returned the Yucatán to Maya rule. Some Maya rebels retreated to unoccupied territories where they held out until 1901. (p. 609) | |
| 784078557 | Catholic Reformation | Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church, begun in response to the Protestant Reformation. It clarified Catholic theology and reformed clerical training and discipline. (p. 409) | |
| 784078558 | Champa rice | Quick-maturing rice that can allow two harvests in one growing season. Originally introduced into Champa from India, it was later sent to China as a tribute gift by the Champa state. (See also tributary system.) (p. 264) | |
| 784078559 | Chang'an | City in the Wei Valley in eastern China. It became the capital of the Qin and early Han Empires. Its main features were imitated in the cities and towns that sprang up throughout the Han Empire. (p. 143) | |
| 784078560 | Charlemagne (742-814) | King of the Franks (r. 768-814); emperor (r. 800-814). Through a series of military conquests he established the Carolingian Empire, which encompassed all of Gaul and parts of Germany and Italy. Though illiterate himself, he sponsored a brief intellectual revival. (p. 219) | |
| 784078561 | chartered companies | Groups of private investors who paid an annual fee to France and England in exchange for a monopoly over trade to the West Indies colonies. (p. 460) | |
| 784078562 | Chavín | The first major urban civilization in South America (900-250 B.C.E.). Its capital, Chavín de Huántar, was located high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Chavín became politically and economically dominant in a densely populated region that included two distinct ecological zones, the Peruvian coastal plain and the Andean foothills. (p. 54) | |
| 784078563 | Chiang Kai-shek | (1886-1975) Chinese military and political leader. Succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Guomindang in 1923; headed the Chinese government from 1928 to 1948; fought against the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. After 1949 he headed the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan. (pp. 752, 776) | |
| 784078564 | chiefdom | Form of political organization with rule by a hereditary leader who held power over a collection of villages and towns. Less powerful than kingdoms and empires, chiefdoms were based on gift giving and commercial links. (p. 280) | |
| 784078565 | chinampas | Raised fields constructed along lake shores in Mesoamerica to increase agricultural yields. (p. 270) | |
| 784078566 | city-state | A small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political form in early Mesopotamia, Archaic and Classical Greece, Phoenicia, and early Italy. (See also polis.) (p. 16) | |
| 784078567 | civilization | An ambiguous term often used to denote more complex societies but sometimes by anthropologists to describe any group of people sharing a set of cultural traits. (p. 5) | |
| 784078568 | Cixi, Empress Dowager (1835-1908) | Empress of China and mother of Emperor Guangxi. She put her son under house arrest, supported antiforeign movements, and resisted reforms of the Chinese government and armed forces. (p. 701) | |
| 784078569 | clipper ship | Large, fast, streamlined sailing vessel, often American built, of the mid-to-late nineteenth century rigged with vast canvas sails hung from tall masts. (p. 644) | |
| 784078570 | Cold War (1945-1991) | The ideological struggle between communism (Soviet Union) and capitalism (United States) for world influence. The Soviet Union and the United States came to the brink of actual war during the Cuban missile crisis but never attacked one another. The Cold War came to an end when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. (See also North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Warsaw Pact.) (p. 821) | |
| 784078571 | colonialism | Policy by which a nation administers a foreign territory and develops its resources for the benefit of the colonial power. (p. 713) | |
| 784078572 | Columbian Exchange | The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages. (p. 431) | |
| 784078573 | Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506) | Genoese mariner who in the service of Spain led expeditions across the Atlantic, reestablishing contact between the peoples of the Americas and the Old World and opening the way to Spanish conquest and colonization. (p. 388) | |
| 784078574 | Confederation of 1867 | Negotiated union of the formerly separate colonial governments of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. This new Dominion of Canada with a central government in Ottawa is seen as the beginning of the Canadian nation. (p. 599) | |
| 784078575 | Confucius | Western name for the Chinese philosopher Kongzi (551-479 B.C.E.). His doctrine of duty and public service had a great influence on subsequent Chinese thought and served as a code of conduct for government officials. (p. 45) | |
| 784078576 | Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) | Meeting of representatives of European monarchs called to reestablish the old order after the defeat of Napoleon I. (p. 563) | |
| 784078577 | conquistadors | Early sixteenth-century Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru. (See Cortés, Hernán; Pizarro, Francisco.) (p. 394) | |
| 784078578 | Constantine (285-337 C.E.) | Roman emperor (r. 312-337). After reuniting the Roman Empire, he moved the capital to Constantinople and made Christianity a favored religion. (p. 138) | |
| 784078579 | Constitutional Convention | Meeting in 1787 of the elected representatives of the thirteen original states to write the Constitution of the United States. (p. 551) | |
| 789048837 | contract of indenture | A voluntary agreement binding a person to work for a specified period of years in return for free passage to an overseas destination. Before 1800 most indentured servants were Europeans; after 1800 most indentured laborers were Asians. (p. 647) | |
| 789048838 | Cortés, Hernán (1485-1547) | Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521 for Spain. (p. 394) | |
| 789048839 | Cossacks | Peoples of the Russian Empire who lived outside the farming villages, often as herders, mercenaries, or outlaws. Cossacks led the conquest of Siberia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (p. 529) | |
| 789048840 | Council of the Indies | The institution responsible for the supervising of Spain's colonies in the Americas from 1524 to the early eighteenth century, when it lost all but judicial responsibilities. (p. 434) | |
| 789048841 | coureurs des bois (runners of the woods) | French fur traders, many of mixed Amerindian heritage, who lived among and often married with Amerindian peoples of North America. (p. 450) | |
| 789048842 | creoles | In colonial Spanish America, term used to describe someone of European descent born in the New World. Elsewhere in the Americas, the term used to describe all non-native peoples. (p. 440) | |
| 789048843 | Crimean War (1853-1856) | Conflict between the Russian and Ottoman Empires fought primarily in the Crimean Peninsula. To prevent Russian expansion, Britain and France sent troops to support the Ottomans. (p. 660) | |
| 789048844 | Crusades (1096-1291) | Armed pilgrimages to the Holy Land by Christians determined to recover Jerusalem from Muslim rule. The Crusades brought an end to western Europe's centuries of intellectual and cultural isolation. (p. 237) | |
| 789048845 | Crystal Palace | Building erected in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Made of iron and glass, like a gigantic greenhouse, it was a symbol of the industrial age. (p. 578) | |
| 789048846 | Cuban missile crisis (1962) | Brink-of-war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter's placement of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. (p. 829) | |
| 789048847 | cultural imperialism | Domination of one culture over another by a deliberate policy or by economic or technological superiority. (p. 897) | |
| 789048848 | Cultural Revolution (China) (1966-1969) | Campaign in China ordered by Mao Zedong to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation. (p. 841) | |
| 789048849 | culture | Socially transmitted patterns of action and expression. Material culture refers to physical objects, such as dwellings, clothing, tools, and crafts. Culture also includes arts, beliefs, knowledge, and technology. (p. 6) | |
| 789048850 | cuneiform | A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represent words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but was later adapted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes. (p. 22) | |
| 789048851 | Cyrus (600-530 B.C.E.) | Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Between 550 and 530 B.C.E. he conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylon. Revered in the traditions of both Iran and the subject peoples, he employed Persians and Medes in his administration and respected the institutions and beliefs of subject peoples. (p. 96) | |
| 789048852 | czar | See tsar. | |
| 789519955 | daimyo | Literally, great name(s). Japanese warlords and great landowners, whose armed samurai gave them control of the Japanese islands from the eighth to the later nineteenth century. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate they were subordinated to the imperial government. (p. 511) | |
| 789519956 | Daoism | Chinese school of thought, originating in the Warring States Period with Laozi (604-531 B.C.E.). Daoism offered an alternative to the Confucian emphasis on hierarchy and duty. Daoists believe that the world is always changing and is devoid of absolute morality or meaning. They accept the world as they find it, avoid futile struggles, and deviate as little as possible from the Dao, or "path" of nature. (See also Confucius.) (p. 45) | |
| 789519957 | Darius I (ca. 558-486 B.C.E.) | Third ruler of the Persian Empire (r. 521-486) B.C.E.). He crushed the widespread initial resistance to his rule and gave all major government posts to Persians rather than to Medes. He established a system of provinces and tribute, began construction of Persepolis, and expanded Persian control in the east (Pakistan) and west (northern Greece). (p. 96) | |
| 789519958 | Decembrist revolt | Abortive attempt by army officers to take control of the Russian government upon the death of Tsar Alexander I in 1825. (p. 666) | |
| 789519959 | Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) | Statement of fundamental political rights adopted by the French National Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution. (p. 555) | |
| 789519960 | deforestation | The removal of trees faster than forests can replace themselves. (p. 416) | |
| 789519961 | Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) | Centralized Indian empire of varying extent, created by Muslim invaders. (p. 328) | |
| 789519962 | democracy | A system of government in which all "citizens" (however defined) have equal political and legal rights, privileges, and protections, as in the Greek city-state of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. (p. 107) | |
| 789519963 | demographic transition | A change in the rates of population growth. Before the transition, both birthrates and death rates are high, resulting in a slowly growing population; then the death rate drops but the birthrate remains high, causing a population explosion; finally the birthrate drops and the population growth slows down. This transition took place in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in North America and East Asia in the mid-twentieth, and, most recently, in Latin America and South Asia. (p. 862) | |
| 789519964 | Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) | Communist Party leader who forced Chinese economic reforms after the death of Mao Zedong. (p. 857) | |
| 789519965 | development | In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the economic process that led to industrialization, urbanization, the rise of a large and prosperous middle class, and heavy investment in education. (p. 616) | |
| 789519966 | devshirme | "Selection" in Turkish. The system by which boys from Christian communities were taken by the Ottoman state to serve as Janissaries. (p. 489) | |
| 789519967 | dhow | Ship of small to moderate size used in the western Indian Ocean, traditionally with a triangular sail and a sewn timber hull. (p. 338) | |
| 789519968 | Diagne, Blaise (1872-1934) | Senegalese political leader. He was the first African elected to the French National Assembly. During World War I, in exchange for promises to give French citizenship to Senegalese, he helped recruit Africans to serve in the French army. After the war, he led a movement to abolish forced labor in Africa. (p. 799) | |
| 789519969 | Dias, Bartolomeu (1450?-1500) | Portuguese explorer who in 1488 led the first expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa from the Atlantic and sight the Indian Ocean. (p. 386) | |
| 789519970 | Diaspora | A Greek word meaning "dispersal," used to describe the communities of a given ethnic group living outside their homeland. Jews, for example, spread from Israel to western Asia and the Mediterranean lands in antiquity and today can be found throughout the world. (p. 80) | |
| 791630747 | Dirty War | War waged by the Argentine military (1976-1982) against leftist groups. Characterized by the use of illegal imprisonment, torture, and executions by the military. (p. 850) | |
| 791630748 | divination | Techniques for ascertaining the future or the will of the gods by interpreting natural phenomena such as, in early China, the cracks on oracle bones or, in ancient Greece, the flight of birds through sectors of the sky. (p. 41) | |
| 791630749 | division of labor | A manufacturing technique that breaks down a craft into many simple and repetitive tasks that can be performed by unskilled workers. Pioneered in the pottery works of Josiah Wedgwood and in other eighteenth-century factories, it greatly increased the productivity of labor and lowered the cost of manufactured goods. (See also Wedgwood, Josiah.) (p. 574) | |
| 791630750 | driver | A privileged male slave whose job was to ensure that a slave gang did its work on a plantation. (p. 464) | |
| 791630751 | durbar | An elaborate display of political power and wealth in British India in the nineteenth century, ostensibly in imitation of the pageantry of the Mughal Empire. (p. 636) | |
| 791630752 | Dutch West India Company (1621-1794) | Trading company chartered by the Dutch government to conduct its merchants' trade in the Americas and Africa. (p. 460) | |
| 791630753 | Edison, Thomas (1847-1931) | American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures. (p. 684) | |
| 791630754 | Einstein, Albert (1879-1955) | German physicist who developed the theory of relativity, which states that time, space, and mass are relative to each other and not fixed. (p. 760) | |
| 791630755 | El Alamein | Town in Egypt, site of the victory by Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery over German forces led by General Erwin Rommel (the "Desert Fox") in 1942-1943. (p. 782) | |
| 791630756 | electricity | A form of energy used in telegraphy from the 1840s on and for lighting, industrial motors, and railroads beginning in the 1880s. (p. 684) | |
| 791630757 | electric telegraph | A device for rapid, long-distance transmission of information over an electric wire. It was introduced in England and North America in the 1830s and 1840s and replaced telegraph systems that utilized visual signals such as semaphores. (See also submarine telegraph cables.) (p. 580) | |
| 791630758 | encomienda | A grant of authority over a population of Amerindians in the Spanish colonies. It provided the grant holder with a supply of cheap labor and periodic payments of goods by the Amerindians. It obliged the grant holder to Christianize the Amerindians. (p. 439) | |
| 791630759 | English Civil War (1642-1649) | A conflict over royal versus. Parliamentary rights, caused by King Charles I's arrest of his parliamentary critics and ending with his execution. Its outcome checked the growth of royal absolutism and, with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, ensured that England would be a constitutional monarchy. (p. 422) | |
| 791630760 | Enlightenment | A philosophical movement in eighteenth-century Europe that fostered the belief that one could reform society by discovering rational laws that governed social behavior and were just as scientific as the laws of physics. (pp. 412, 542) | |
| 791630761 | equites | In ancient Italy, prosperous landowners second in wealth and status to the senatorial aristocracy. The Roman emperors allied with this group to counterbalance the influence of the old aristocracy and used the equites to staff the imperial civil service. (p. 132) | |
| 791630762 | Estates General | France's traditional national assembly with representatives of the three estates, or classes, in French society: the clergy, nobility, and commoners. The calling of the Estates General in 1789 led to the French Revolution. (p. 553) | |
| 791630763 | Ethiopia | East African highland nation lying east of the Nile River. (See also Menelik II; Selassie, Haile.) (p. 190) | |
| 791630764 | ethnic cleansing | Effort to eradicate a people and its culture by means of mass killing and the destruction of historical buildings and cultural materials. Ethnic cleansing was used by both sides of the conflicts that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. (p. 882) | |
| 791630765 | European Community (EC) | An organization promoting economic unity in Europe formed in 1967 by consolidation of earlier, more limited, agreements. Replaced by the European Union (EU) in 1993. (p. 825) | |
| 791630766 | extraterritoriality | The right of foreign residents in a country to live under the laws of their native country and disregard the laws of the host country. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European and American nationals living in certain areas of Chinese and Ottoman cities were granted this right. (p. 661) | |
| 791630767 | Faisal I (1885-1933) | Arab prince, leader of the Arab Revolt in World War I. The British made him king of Iraq in 1921, and he reigned under British protection until 1933. |
