AP, SAT and ACT · Humanities

AP World History review: key concepts

AP World History review from 1200 CE to today: trade networks, empires, revolutions, industry, imperialism, world wars, the Cold War and globalization.

39 cards5 topicsAbout 15 minutes a roundAP World History: Modern style course content (world history from about 1200 CE to the present)

Independent study material written by StudyBrix. AP and SAT are trademarks of College Board and ACT is a trademark of ACT, Inc.; neither organisation is involved with or has reviewed this deck.

Print cards to cut out (PDF)Print a study list (PDF)

About this deck

This deck is for students preparing for an AP World History: Modern style exam and for anyone who wants a connected overview of world history since about 1200 CE. It runs in four broad eras: states and trade networks to 1450, land and sea empires to 1750, revolutions, industrialization and imperialism to 1900, and global conflict, decolonization and globalization since 1900. The last group practises the thinking skills that essay questions reward.

No background is required, though a blank world map is a useful companion. Mark each place as you meet it, because world history questions often hinge on where things happened and how regions were linked.

Study by comparison and connection. After learning a card, ask how the same development looked in another region (the Ottoman and Mughal empires, the Haitian and French revolutions, Japanese and Chinese responses to the West). Then ask what caused it and what followed. A single sentence per card that names a cause and an effect is excellent essay practice.

Common mistakes: writing about Europe only when a question asks for a global answer; assuming every region industrialized or decolonized at the same pace; and listing facts without explaining their significance. Be careful with dates that overlap unit boundaries, and avoid describing any society as unchanging; continuity always sits alongside change.

Before you start: None; a world map and a rough timeline will help you place each card.

All 39 cards

Cover the definitions with a sheet of paper and test yourself, or use the study modes above.

c. 1200 to 1450

Song dynasty: Chinese dynasty (960 to 1279) known for a merit-based bureaucracy, Neo-Confucianism, commercial growth and innovations such as paper money.Example: Fast-ripening Champa rice helped China's population grow rapidly.
Mali Empire: West African empire that grew rich by controlling trans-Saharan gold and salt trade; Islam spread among its rulers and merchants.Example: Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 displayed Mali's enormous wealth.
Pax Mongolica: Period of relative stability under Mongol rule in the 1200s and 1300s that made Eurasian overland trade and travel safer.Example: Travellers such as Marco Polo crossed Asia along revived Silk Road routes.
Indian Ocean trade network: Maritime exchange linking East Africa, Arabia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, driven by predictable seasonal monsoon winds.Example: Swahili city-states such as Kilwa grew rich as trading hubs on the East African coast.
Black Death: Bubonic plague pandemic of the 1340s and 1350s that spread along trade routes and killed a large share of Afro-Eurasia's population.Example: Labour shortages afterward raised wages for many surviving European peasants.
Mit'a system: Inca labour obligation requiring communities to send workers for state projects such as roads, farming and mining.Example: The Spanish later adapted it to force labour in the silver mines of Potosi.
Aztec tribute system: Method by which the Mexica in Tenochtitlan demanded goods and labour from conquered peoples rather than ruling them directly.Example: Resentful subject peoples allied with the Spanish against the Aztecs in 1519 to 1521.

c. 1450 to 1750

Gunpowder empires: The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal states, which used firearms and cannons to expand and hold large land-based territories.Example: Ottoman cannons broke the walls of Constantinople in 1453.
Devshirme: Ottoman practice of taking Christian boys from the Balkans, converting them and training them as soldiers or administrators.Example: Many became Janissaries, an elite infantry loyal to the sultan.
Columbian Exchange (global view): Transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases across the Atlantic after 1492, reshaping diets and populations worldwide.Example: American crops like maize and sweet potatoes helped China's population grow in the 1700s.
Joint-stock company: Business owned by investors who buy shares, spreading the risk of costly long-distance trading voyages.Example: The Dutch East India Company (VOC), founded 1602, dominated much of the spice trade.
Atlantic slave trade: Forced transport of roughly 12 million Africans across the Atlantic, mainly to plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean.Example: Sugar plantations demanded huge numbers of enslaved workers.
Casta system: Spanish colonial hierarchy that ranked people by ancestry, with peninsulares at the top.Example: Creoles, born in the Americas, resented being ranked below peninsulares, which later fed independence movements.
Manila galleons and global silver: Spanish ships that carried American silver across the Pacific to Manila, where it bought Chinese goods; silver linked the world economy.Example: China's demand for silver came partly from its tax system's shift to silver payment.
Protestant Reformation: Religious movement begun by Martin Luther in 1517 that challenged the Roman Catholic Church and split Western Christianity.Example: The printing press spread Luther's ideas quickly across German states.
Tokugawa shogunate: Japanese military government from 1603 to 1868 that restricted foreign contact and trade to limit outside influence.Example: Only Dutch and Chinese traders were allowed, through Nagasaki.

c. 1750 to 1900

Enlightenment: Eighteenth-century intellectual movement that applied reason to society and politics, emphasizing natural rights and the social contract.Example: Locke's ideas on life, liberty and property influenced revolutionary declarations.
Haitian Revolution: Revolt of enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (1791 to 1804) that created the first independent Black republic.Example: Toussaint Louverture was a key leader; Haiti declared independence in 1804.
Industrial Revolution: Shift to machine production powered by fossil fuels, beginning in Britain in the late 1700s.Example: Britain had coal, iron, capital, colonies and navigable rivers, which helped it industrialize first.
Opium Wars: Conflicts (1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860) in which Britain, and later France, forced China to accept the opium trade and open ports.Example: The Treaty of Nanjing gave Hong Kong to Britain.
Meiji Restoration: Japan's 1868 return of power to the emperor, followed by rapid state-led industrialization and modernization.Example: By 1905 Japan had defeated Russia in war.
Berlin Conference: 1884 to 1885 meeting where European powers set rules for claiming African territory, accelerating the Scramble for Africa.Example: No African representatives took part.
Indian Rebellion of 1857: Uprising against the British East India Company sparked partly by sepoys' grievances; afterward the British Crown ruled India directly.Example: The rebellion is also called the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence.
Indentured servitude (1800s migration): Contract labour in which workers agreed to work for years in exchange for passage, often to plantations after slavery was abolished.Example: Many South Asians went to Trinidad, Fiji and Mauritius under such contracts.
Economic imperialism: Using financial and trade power, rather than direct rule, to control another region's economy.Example: British and US companies controlled much of Latin America's export economies in the late 1800s.

c. 1900 to present

Causes of the First World War: Militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism, triggered by the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.Example: Alliance commitments turned a regional crisis into a continental war.
Treaty of Versailles: 1919 peace treaty that blamed Germany for the war, imposed reparations and redrew borders.Example: Resentment of its terms helped extremist parties gain support in Germany.
Great Depression: Global economic collapse of the 1930s that began with the 1929 US stock crash and spread through trade and finance.Example: Falling demand hurt export economies in Latin America, which then expanded state involvement.
Total war: Conflict in which states mobilize their whole economy and society, and civilians become targets.Example: Both world wars used rationing, propaganda and women's labour in war industries.
Holocaust: Nazi Germany's systematic murder of about six million Jews, along with Roma, disabled people and others.Example: It led to the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Cold War: Rivalry from 1947 to 1991 between the US and USSR fought through alliances, arms races and proxy wars rather than direct war.Example: The Korean War (1950 to 1953) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) were major flashpoints.
Decolonization: The process by which colonies gained independence after 1945, through negotiation or armed struggle.Example: India gained independence in 1947; Algeria won its war against France in 1962.
Non-Aligned Movement: Group of states, many newly independent, that refused to join either Cold War bloc; it grew out of the 1955 Bandung Conference.Example: Leaders included Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia.
Green Revolution: Spread of high-yield seeds, fertilizers and irrigation from the 1960s that raised food output in many developing countries.Example: India's wheat production rose sharply, though costs favoured wealthier farmers.
Globalization: Growing worldwide integration of economies, cultures and communication, especially since the late 1900s.Example: The World Trade Organization was created in 1995 to oversee trade rules.

Historical thinking skills

Comparison: Identifying and explaining similarities and differences between developments in different places or times.Example: Compare Ottoman and Mughal religious policies toward non-Muslim subjects.
Causation (world history): Explaining why an event happened and what followed, separating underlying causes from triggers.Example: The Industrial Revolution increased demand for raw materials, a cause of new imperialism.
Contextualization (world history): Situating a development within the broader regional or global setting of its time.Example: Place Japanese modernization within Western pressure on East Asia after 1850.
Point of view, purpose and audience: Questions for analysing a source: who created it, why, for whom and in what situation, which shapes how it can be used as evidence.Example: A colonial administrator's report praising railways may downplay costs to local people.