Chpt. 15, The Changing Power Balance

Question 1

Zheng He

Answer 1

a Chinese Muslim admiral who commanded a series of Persian Gulf, Indian Ocan, and Red Sea trade expeditions under the third Ming emperor, Yunglo, between 1405 and 1433

Question 2

Renaissance

Answer 2

a cultural and political movement that in western Europe that began in Italy c. 1400; rested on urban vitality and expanding commerce, and featured a literature and art with distinctly more secular priorities than those of the Middle Ages

Question 3

Francesco Petrarch

Answer 3

one of the major literary figures of the Western Renaissance; an Italian author and humanist

Question 4

Castile

Answer 4

along with Aragon, a regional kingdom of the Iberian peninsula; they pressed reconquest of the peninsula from the Muslims and developed a vigorous military and religious agenda; ruled by Queen Isabella, and allied with Aragon through marriage to Ferdinand

Question 5

Aragon

Answer 5

along with Castile, a regional kingdom of the Iberian peninsula; they pressed reconquest of the peninsula from the Muslims and developed a vigorous military and religious agenda; ruled by King Ferdinand, and allied with Castile through marriage to Queen Isabella

Question 6

Vivaldis

Answer 6

two Genoese brothers who attempted to find a Western route to the “Indies” and disappeared in 1291; they were a precursor to the European thrust into the southern Atlantic

Question 7

Vasco da Gama

Answer 7

a Portuguese captain who sailed for India in 1497; he established an early Portuguese dominance in the Indian Ocean

Question 8

Prince Henry the Navigator

Answer 8

a Portuguese prince responsible for the direction of series of expeditions along the African coast in the 15th century; marked the beginning of western European expansion

Question 9

ethnocentrism

Answer 9

a habitual disposition to judge foreign peoples or groups by the standards and practices of one’s own culture or ethnic group

Question 10

Ibn Rushd (Averroës in the West)

Answer 10

a famed Islamic philosopher from (Islamic) Cordoba, Spain, who asserted that knowledge can come in two ways: from religion and faith, but also from reason; he was exiled for his teachings, but his writings had great influence on Christian education and philosophy

Question 11

al-Ghazali

Answer 11

a more typical Islamic philosopher, who in his book “The Destruction of the Philosophers” argued that it is impossible to discover religious truth by human reason