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Enlightenment
An European political and intellectual project of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that challenged traditional beliefs in religion, politics, and learning in general, in the name of reason and progress.
Feudalism
A system of agrarian-based production that is characterized by fixed social hierarchies and a rigid pattern of obligations. Tenant farmers and other workers laboured on, or with, aristocratic landowners’ property in exchange for subsistence provisions such as food and shelter for their families, rather than a wage.
Opium wars
Two wars waged between Britain and its East India Company, France, and China between 1839 and 1860. The European powers waged war to force Chinese acceptance of their exports, including opium grown by Britain in India. China was comprehensively defeated, signalling the end of its last imperial dynasty.
Quing Dynsaty
The last of China’s imperial dynasties, which reigned from 1644 to 1912, with its monarchs claiming the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ - similar to the medieval European ‘Divine Right of Kings’ - until its overthrow and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.
Empire
A structure of domination in which diverse cultures, ethnic groups, or nationalities are subject to a single source of authority.
Belle époque
From the French, literally meaning ‘beautiful era’; a period of peace and prosperity in Europe between the late nineteenth century and the outbreak of the First World War was seen as a ‘golden age’. It was also the peak of European imperialism, the violent appropriations of which in Africa and Asia enabled the prosperity ‘back home’ in Europe.
Imperialism
Broadly, the policy of extending the power or rule of a state or society beyond its boundaries, typically through the establishment of political, military, and/or economic control over other states or societies (an empire).
Industrial revolution
The period between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries, which saw the mechanization of much manufacturing, and great technological innovation, especially in Europe, as European powers reached their imperial apex.
Mass societies
From the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, societies in which new technologies and industrial transformations led to unprecedented levels of communication, commerce, and connection, and the ‘masses’ gained access to politics.
Social movements
Coalitions of individuals and groups seeking to implement social change. This may be through influencing - or even seizing control of - government or the state and its levers of economic and political power.
Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)
Universal Negro Improvement Association Black leader who advocated “black nationalism and financial independence for blacks. He started the “Back to Africa” movement. He believed blacks would not get justice in mostly white nations.
Total war
A war involving all aspects of society, resulting from large- scale conscription, the gearing of the economy to military ends, and the mass destruction of ‘enemy’ targets, including civilians.
The 4 main clauses linked to the outbreak of WW1
- The ‘German problem’
- The ‘Eastern question’
- Imperialism
- Nationalism
Chauvinism
An uncritical and unreasoned dedication to a cause or group, typically based on a belief in its superiority, as in ‘national chauvinism’.
Tge 4 main factors associated with the outbreak of WW2
- The WW1 peace settlements
- The global economic crisis
- Nazi expansionism
- Japanese expansionism in Asia
Reparations
Compensation, usually involving financial payments or the physical requisition of goods, to cover the costs of war and other international human catastrophes, including slavery.
Autarky
Economic self-sufficiency, often associated with expansionism and conquest to ensure the control of economic resources and reduce economic dependency on other states.
Social Darwinism
The eugenicist belief that social existence is characterized by competition or struggle, ‘the survival of the fittest’, implying that international conflict and probably war are inevitable.
Appeasement
A foreign policy strategy of making concessions to an aggressor in the hope of modifying its political objectives and, specifically, avoiding war.
Imperial over-reach
A hubristic attempt by an imperialist power to exert control over more territories or peoples than it has the material resources (including financial and military capabilities) to successfully maintain.
What 3 factors greatly accelerated the gradual dismantling of European colonial control after WW2 (although the process begun after WW1)?
- Traditional imperial powers (especially the UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands) were suffering from ‘imperial over reach’
- A decisive shift against European colonialism had occurred diplomatically, especially from the U.S side
- Resistance to colonialism across Asia, Africa, and Latin America became fiercer and more politically engaged.
Superpower
First used as ‘super-power’ by William Fox (1944), the term indicates a power that is greater than a traditional ‘great power’.
What were tge 4 broad circumstances that led to the cold war
- The realist take states that the existence of two superpower states meant an unavoidable rivalry for expansion & power
- US/USSR rivalry was worsened by common geopoltical interests in Europe and mutual dependent ideological distrust
- The ideological opposition between the collectivist ideology of popular role and state controlled command economy in the USSR and the liberal, individualist capitalism of the U.S
- The approximate equivalence of the US/USSR military capacities and nuclear weapon arsenal
Buffer zone
An area, state, or collection of states located between potential (and more powerful) adversaries, reducing the likelihood of land based attack in particular.
