Cultural History - AP World History: Modern

At this time in history people were not treated equally before the law, in the workplace, or in society as a whole. People were treated differently based on their economic status, gender, race, and ethnicity. Socialism called for the immediate end to this practice and the start of policy that made everyone equal.

Marx and Engels were German social philosophers who advocated an economic and social theory known as Marxism. Political systems based on Marxism have been called communist due to their emphasis on community improvement and common good. It bears noting, however, that notable communist governments, like the Soviet government, bear little resemblance to the theories and systems advocated by Marx and Engels.

The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital are the most famous works of Marx and Engels by far. They did, however, write many more books over the years including Value, Price, and Profit, which was critical of the use of mass labor by the wealthy for their gain. Reform or Revolution was written by Rosa Luxembourg, a follower of Marx and Engels.

Marx and Engels advocated the masses or Proletariat as the group that should rule the nation. They felt that to put power into the hands of a few would invite the few to abuse their power. They said the only one capable of ruling the people was the people themselves.

Utilitarianism was a philosophy that concerned the morals and ethics of society. It said that the most ethical action was the one that contributed the most good to the most people. This philosophy sought to change morals and ethics to focus of the benefit of actions to society.

Bentham is credited as the founder of Utilitarian morals. His philosophy was meant to signal a shift in the way society functioned. he wanted to change how society viewed good and bad. He sought to make it more analytical by measuring good and bad as whether something helped more people than it hurt rather than on old moral codes. John Stuart Mill developed Utilitarianism and is probably its most famous proponent, but his work followed Bentham's by a few years.

Anarchists were a group that wanted to end all government. They felt that people should be the only ones to determine their fate. They felt no government should have any control over any person.

While these all became associated with nationalism, the true definition of nationalism is the basic statement of identifying with a nation or group of people. This association over time led to the fanatical devotion and love of this nation or group that would spin Europe out of control towards the First World War.

Utilitarianism encouraged the government and the Elite to ensure that the greatest number of citizens benefited from the distribution of resources, materials, and profit. This became popular in the Industrial revolution as a middle class developed, the poor got poorer, and there was a surplus of material goods in the economy as a result of factory production.

Liberals worked to push society forward and have the voice of the populace represented in government. They would be opposed to any government that favored traditional values over progress, and monarchical over elected officials.

The Monroe Doctrine was issued by American President James Monroe in 1823. It was issued in reaction to the independence movements taking place in Latin America. The doctrine states that the whole of the American hemisphere is under American protection and that the United States will intervene to prevent a renewal of European interference in the Americas. It has remained a significant part of American foreign policy ever since.

Edmund Burke was a political theorist and philosopher in Britain in the eighteenth century. He is remembered for his writings on the American Revolution (of which he was in support) and the French Revolution (which he was opposed to the worst excesses of). Burke is widely credited as the founder of modern conservatism for his arguments in favor of gradual change and the preservation of the status quo.

The Self Strengthening Movement emerged in China in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was a series of institutional and military reforms that were enacted following a humiliating series of concessions and defeats at the hands of European powers.

Deism is associated with the Scientific Revolution because it attempted to explain how God could co-exist with the newly-discovered laws of science. The idea of a watchmaker fits most closely with those requirements, because it embraces the idea that world was created by a higher power but rejects the idea of divine intervention after creation.

Like the rest of Europe at the time, England had also been experiencing the stirring influences of the rising Protestant Reformation. But concrete action had yet to be taken, until King Henry VIII’s personal desires fatally clashed with Catholic dogma. Unhappy with his current wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, and desperate to finally have a male heir, King Henry VIII was determined to divorce Queen Catherine and wed her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. However, divorce was a tricky matter during this era and could only be granted through Papal permission. King Henry personally appealed to Pope Clement VII, asking that he be allowed to divorce Catherine in favor of Anne, but the Pope, who was currently being held prisoner by Catherine’s nephew (aka the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) was not at all inclined to grant this request. Incensed, King Henry decided that he didn’t need to listen to the Vatican and he married Anne Boleyn anyway, declaring his divorce from Catherine to be legal under his authority as supreme sovereign of England. Then, in defiance of the Pope’s orders, in 1534 King Henry passed the Act of Supremacy, which declared that the entire nation of England was no longer a Catholic country, had no allegiance to the Vatican or to the Pope, and was no longer going to render either monetary or military support to the Papal State. Furthermore, King Henry declared that he himself, as England’s ruler, was the dominant religious leader in the land and so he created the Church of England (aka Anglicanism), the new official state religion.

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus is most famous for his works of drama. Most notable he wrote the Oresteia trilogy.

The Great Library of Alexandria was built in Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty (circa 300 BCE) For a few centuries it was a renowned center of learning and innovation in the classical world.

The Canterbury Tales was written by the Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century. It is considered to be of particular importance for encouraging the spread of vernacular English in English society.

Islam was founded by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century CE. It is an Abrahamic religion, which means it continues the same monotheistic tradition as Judaism and Christianity. Islam spread extremely rapidly around the Middle East and North Africa in the centuries after its foundation.