AP World History Terms and Definitions Flashcards

10518305395	Agricultural Revolutions	The change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E. Also known as the Neolithic Revolution.	0
10518305396	Bantu	Collective name of a large group of sub-Saharan African languages and of the peoples speaking these languages.	1
10518306750	Buddhism	A belief systemof eastern and central Asia that believes suffering is inherent in life and that one can be liberated from it by mental and moral self purification.	2
10518306751	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.	3
10518308384	Chavin	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.	4
10518309214	Christianity	The Religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as a sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.	5
10518309215	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.	6
10518312664	Confucianism	System of ethics, education, and statesmanship, stressing love for humanity, ancestor worship, reverence for parents, and harmony in thought and conduct.	7
10518313851	Cuneiform	A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia.	8
10518313852	Daoism	Chinese school of thought, originating in the Warring States Period with Laozi (604-531 B.C.E.). Offered an alternative to the Confucian emphasis on hierarchy and duty.	9
10518320578	Diaspora	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 Mediterranean lands in antiquity and today can be found throughout the world.	10
10518321572	Foragers	People who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild edible plants and insects.	11
10518322980	Hieroglyphics	A system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. It was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt. Because of the long period of study required to master this system, literacy in hieroglyphics was confined to a relatively small group of scribes and administrators.	12
10518323740	Israel	The land between the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, occupied by the Israelites from the early second millennium B.C.E.	13
10518325185	Linear B	A set of syllabic symbols, derived from the writing system of Minoan Crete, used in the Mycenaean palaces of the Late Bronze Age to write an early form of Greek.	14
10518327362	Legalism	Chinese political philosophy that emphasized the unruliness of human nature and justified state coercion and control. The Qin ruling class invoked it to validate the authoritarian nature of their regime and its profligate expenditure of subjects' lives and labor.	15
10518328996	Mandate of Heaven	Chinese religious and political ideology developed by the Zhou, according to which it was the prerogative of Heaven, the chief deity, to grant power to the ruler of China and to take away that power if the ruler failed to conduct himself justly and in the best interests of his subjects.	16
10518329827	Mesoamerica	The area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua in which diverse pro-Columbian civilizations flourished.	17
10518331999	Mesopotamia	An acienct region in West Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.	18
10518332000	Minoans	Prosperous civilization on the Aegean island of Crete in the second millennium B.C.E. Engaged in far-flung commerce around the Mediterranean and exerted powerful cultural influences on the early Greeks.	19
10518333987	Monotheism	Belief in the existence of a single divine entity.	20
10518335945	Mycenae	Site of a fortified palace complex in southern Greece that controlled a Late Bronze Age kingdom.	21
10518337283	Neo-Assyrian Empire	An empire extending from western Iran to Syria-Palestine, conquered by the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia between the tenth and seventh centuries B.C.E.	22
10518337284	Neolithic	The period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolution(s).	23
10518338132	Olmec	The first Mesoamerican civilization. Between ca. 1200 and 400 B.C.E.	24
10518338133	Papyrus	A reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. From it was produced a coarse, paperlike writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.	25
10518340217	Pastoralists	The herder of animals	26
10518344643	Pharaoh	The central figure in the ancient Egyptian state. Believed to be an earthly manifestation of the gods, he used his absolute power to maintain the safety and prosperity of Egypt.	27
10518346732	Phoenicians	Semitic-speaking Canaanites living on the coast of modern Lebanon and Syria in the first millennium B.C.E.	28
10518348602	Polytheism	The belief in multiple gods.	29
10518349830	Darius I	Third ruler of the Persian Empire (r. 521-486 B.C.E.).	30
10518350973	Zoroastrianism	A religion originating in ancient Iran with the prophet Zoroaster. It centered on a single benevolent deity who engaged in a twelve-thousand-year struggle with demonic forces before prevailing and restoring a pristine world.	31
10518350974	Hopolite	A heavily armored Greek infantryman of the Archaic and Classical periods who fought in the close-packed phalanx formation.	32
10518352470	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.	33
10518352471	Herodotus	He came from a Greek community in Anatolia and traveled extensively, collecting information in western Asia and the Mediterranean lands. He traced the antecedents of and chronicled the Persian Wars between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, thus originating the Western tradition of historical writing.	34
10518355620	Persian Wars	Conflicts between Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, ranging from the Ionian Revolt (499-494 B.C.E.) through Darius's punitive expedition that failed at Marathon (490 B.C.E.) and the defeat of Xerxes' massive invasion of Greece by the Spartan-led Hellenic League (480-479 B.C.E.).	35
10518355621	Socrates	Athenian philosopher (ca. 470-399 B.C.E.) who shifted the emphasis of philosophical investigation from questions of natural science to ethics and human behavior.	36
10518362008	Hellenistic Age	Historians' term for the era, usually dated 323-30 B.C.E., in which Greek culture spread across western Asia and northeastern Africa after the conquests of Alexander the Great.	37
10518363166	Alexandria	City on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt founded by Alexander. It became the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of the Ptolemies.	38
10518363469	Alexander	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.	39