AP World History: Modern Notes - Units 5&6

Continue your test prep with Barron’s AP World History: Modern Notes for Units 5&6. Use these study notes to get a refresher on what you’ve been studying in your AP World History: Modern course. Review key AP World History: Modern exam topics and get an overview of broad trends. Want more study notes and test-taking strategies? Check out Barron’s AP World History: Modern Premium Test Prep Book and AP World History Podcast.

AP World History: Modern - Overview of Units 5&6

During the 1750–1900 period, the world entered the modern age. What defines modernity is a question of debate among historians. In popular terms, the word modern is used as a synonym for “contemporary” or as a way to describe one’s own times. In historical terms, it describes an era characterized by certain features. Different scholars identify these in different ways, but most agree on the following.

• In politics, there is a move toward greater political representation. The end result in most societies is a more open form of government or at least the appearance of greater openness.
  
• In economics, industrialization becomes a driving force. A shift occurs from feudalism and mercantilism to capitalism (or alternatives such as socialism) as sectors of the economy, industry, and commerce grow in importance relative to traditional agriculture.
  
• In society, classes transform and old hierarchies break down, as hereditary aristocracies fade in favor of new elites deriving their status from wealth. New classes expand or emerge, especially the middle class and industrial working class. Societies urbanize, population growth accelerates, and large-scale migration becomes more prevalent.
  
• In culture, a scientific, secular worldview becomes dominant. Artistic and literary styles change more rapidly and radically than ever before.

4 Things to Know About AP World History: Modern Units 5&6

1. In all these things listed above, Europe, with the United States, moved forward first. Political upheavals such as the American Revolution and the French Revolution began the long process of giving more people a greater voice in politics. It was in Europe that the Industrial Revolution began, and it was there that capitalism emerged (as well as alternative economic visions, such as socialism). These changes transformed the economies of the world. Population growth, class diversification, and urbanization were hallmarks of Western social development during the late 1700s and 1800s. The foundations for modern cultural and intellectual life were laid in Europe during the 1700s, thanks to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

3. Another overarching development was the rise of the West as the world’s dominant civilization. Industrialization and modernization enabled the West to control a vast percentage of the world’s habitable territory. Many places originally colonized during the Age of Exploration—such as North and South America—became free during the late 1700s and early 1800s. However, a new imperialism swept over Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, and Africa during the 1800s and early 1900s. Seeking markets and raw materials, and armed with industrial-era weaponry, Western nations subjugated an unprecedented portion of the globe. But as impressive as imperialism was as a practical accomplishment, it carried a steep moral and ethical price. Western imperialism was bound up with warfare, racial prejudice, economic rapacity, and slavery. Many of its harmful effects are still felt to this day.

4. By the end of the nineteenth century, Europe had reached the peak of its power but would soon fall from that pinnacle. The United States was overtaking Europe in economic and military strength. New philosophies, scientific theories, and cultural movements were calling into question the Western world’s traditional values and certainties. Most important, diplomatic tensions were laying the groundwork for World War I (1914–1918), which decisively hastened the process of European decline.

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AP World History: Modern - Broad Trends in Units 5&6

Governance, 1750-1900

During this era, the nation-state—a state-level community united in theory by a common ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural heritage—emerged as the leading form of political organization in more parts of the world, particularly in the West.

The hallmark of modern political life became greater popular representation. This trend began in the West during the late 1700s with the American and French Revolutions. Afterward, Western nations followed various paths—revolutionary or reform oriented, faster or slower— toward greater democratization. Industrialization drove these changes as well.

Other parts of the world were slower to move away from traditional regimes. A few, such as Japan and the Ottoman Empire, did so, developing parliamentary forms of monarchy by the start of the twentieth century. The nations of Latin America developed parliamentary governments in theory, but many slipped into dictatorial or military rule. Revolutions were periodically sparked in these parts of the world, whether because of middle- or lower-class discontent or as a form of protest against Western imperial influence.

The global balance of power changed profoundly, thanks to the technological, economic, and military rise of Europe and the United States. World affairs were increasingly determined by Western foreign policy. Moreover, the “new imperialism” of the mid-to-late 1800s gave Europe and North America unprecedented global dominance. In 1815, the nations of the West controlled roughly 35 percent of the world’s habitable territory. By 1914, that figure had risen to approximately 85 percent. By that time, however, nationalism and competition over colonies made it increasingly likely that Western nations would go to war. The European alliance system formed in the late 1800s, and the level of aggression rose steadily until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Europe 

• French Revolution (1789–1799, Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) and Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815)
• Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) and reactionary politics (1815–1848) vs. revolutions of 1848
• Reform and widening of political representation (1848–1914)
• Women’s suffrage movements
• Anti-Semitism
• Wars of Italian and German unification (Franco-Prussian War)
• Geopolitical conflict (from balance of power to European alliance system; competition over empire)

Middle East

• Tanzimat reforms and Ottoman constitution of 1876 (vs. janissaries and Islamic traditionalism)
• From Ottomanism (Young Turks) to Turkish nationalism
• Balkan nationalism (Greek War of Independence, Balkan Crisis of 1876–1878)
• French colonization of Algeria (1830s–1840s)
• Muhammad Ali’s revolt (1805) in Egypt and construction of Suez Canal (1850s–1860s)
• Geopolitical conflict (Eastern Question, Great Game)
• Millenarian revolts (the Mahdi)

Africa

• Continuation and decline of Atlantic and East African slave trades
• African states (Wassoulou Empire, Sokoto Caliphate, Zulu and Ashanti kingdoms) vs. European imperialism (Berlin Conference, South Africa, Belgian Congo, Herero Wars)
• Geopolitical conflict (Scramble for Africa, Boer War)
• Millenarian revolts (Xhosa cattle killing, the Mahdi, Maji Maji)
• Training of native elites and native troops by imperial powers

East (and Central) Asia

• Qing China’s positive balance of trade vs. technological stagnation
• Opium Wars and “unequal” treaties (foreign concessions)
• Self-strengthening movement vs. Qing conservatism
• Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and Boxer Rebellion (1900)
• Tokugawa isolationism vs. Perry’s “opening” of Japan (1853)
• Meiji Restoration (1868) and industrial modernization of Japan
• Geopolitical conflict (foreign concessions, Open Door Policy, Russo-Japanese War)
• Millenarian revolts (Taiping Rebellion)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Fracturing of Mughal Empire (Marathas, Sikhs)
• British East India Company and Indian Revolt (1857–1858)
• Colonization in Southeast Asia (Dutch East Indies, Singapore, French Indochina, U.S. annexation of Philippines)
• Colonization of Australia (Aboriginal Australians) and New Zealand (Maori)
• U.S. annexation of Hawaiian kingdom
• Geopolitical conflict (battle of Plassey, Anglo-Russian Great Game)
• Training of native elites and native troops by imperial powers (sepoys)
• National-liberation impulses (Indian National Congress, from Filipino Propaganda Movement to Emiliano Aguinaldo)

Americas 

• American Revolution (1775–1783, Declaration of Independence)
• U.S. expansion (Louisiana Purchase, “Manifest Destiny,” Mexican-American and Spanish-American Wars, Hawaiian kingdom)
• U.S. suppression of Native Americans (Tecumseh, Cherokee Nation and Trail of Tears, Indian wars, Wounded Knee, reservation system)
• Slavery in the Americas (Maroon societies, U.S. Civil War, Brazil)
• Haitian Rebellion (1791–1804, François Toussaint L’Ouverture)
• Latin American wars of independence (1810–1825, Simón Bolívar’s Jamaica Letter)
• Failure of constitutional rule in Latin America (caudillos) economic imperialism in Latin America
• Geopolitical conflict (Monroe Doctrine, Spanish-American War)
• Millenarian revolts (Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee)
• National-liberation impulses (Tupac Amaru II in Peru, Mayan Caste War, Lola Rodriguez de Tió in Puerto Rico)

Global and Interregional

• Increased prominence of the nation-state
• Global impact of “new” imperialism (white man’s burden, la mission civilisatrice, social Darwinism) and economic imperialism
• Nationalist impulses
• Indigenous revolts and national-liberation movements (including millenarian revolts)

Cultural Developments and Interactions, 1750-1900

In Europe and America during these years, the pace of cultural change sped up. In contrast to long-lasting movements like the Renaissance and even the Enlightenment, trends and styles in the 1800s and 1900s changed constantly. Such rapid evolution has been a hallmark of modern Western culture. Also characteristic were greater access to culture, the formation of modern political philosophies, and a more scientific and secular worldview. 

Elsewhere, the non-Western world began to adopt many of the artistic and literary forms of the West, especially print culture and writing styles, as well as architecture. Conversely, styles from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East had an influence on Western culture, particularly in painting, sculpture, and decor.

Greater access to public education became a normal part of life in North America and most parts of Europe throughout the 1800s. Literacy rates rose as a result. The same became true for certain other areas of the world in the 1800s.

Europe

• Enlightenment (1700s; Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau)
• Romanticism, realism, and modernism (late 1700s–early 1900s)
• Conservatism (and reaction) vs. liberalism
• Capitalism (Adam Smith) vs. socialism and communism (Karl Marx)
• Nationalism + social Darwinism
• Secularization of culture + Western crisis of faith

Middle East

• Cultural westernization in Ottoman Empire during Tanzimat reforms (mid-1800s)
• From Ottomanism to Turkish nationalism
• Islamic traditionalism
• Revival of Arabic culture

Africa

• Oral tradition and griot storytelling
• Nonrepresentational art and impact on Western modernism
• Influence of Christian missionaries
• National-liberation impulses (Maji Maji revolt)

East (and Central) Asia

• Dream of the Red Chamber (late 1700s)
• Influence of Christian missionaries in China
• Ukiyo-e woodblock painting (Hokusai, early-to-mid-1800s)
• “Goodbye Asia” and Japanese ideologies of nationalist-racial superiority (late 1800s)
• National-liberation impulses (Boxer Rebellion)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• “Company” style in India (Gateway to India arch)
• Influence of Christian missionaries
• National-liberation impulses (Indian National Congress, Filipino Katipunan)

Americas

• Enlightenment (1700s; founding figures)
• Romanticism, realism, and modernism (late 1700s–early 1900s)
• Conservatism (and reaction) vs. liberalism
• Capitalism vs. socialism and communism
• Nationalism + social Darwinism
• National-liberation impulses (Lola Rodriguez de Tió, José Martí)
• Secularization of culture + Western crisis of faith

Global and Interregional

• Rising literacy rates
• Increased westernization of non-Western cultures (colonial educational systems)
• Nationalism and national-liberation impulses

Technology and Innovation, 1750-1900

Between 1750 and 1900, the industrial era ushered in the greatest age of invention the world had seen to date—a cascade surpassed only by the unending process of innovation and reinvention that has followed since. This wave of advancement originated in Europe and North America during the Industrial Revolution and primarily benefited those regions, but it spread to other parts of the world as well during the nineteenth century.

Scientific knowledge expanded enormously. Building on the foundations created in the 1600s and 1700s by the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, scholars, physicians, engineers, and others—again, principally from Europe and North America—made innumerable discoveries and proposed new theories and ideas in every field of inquiry. For the nations of the West, economic prosperity, military might, and imperial power were tightly intertwined with this growing scientific and technological superiority.

Europe

• Impact of Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment
• Steam engine and machine power
• Mining and metallurgy (coal, iron, steel)
• Electricity and petroleum as new power sources
• Communications technology (telegraph, radio, telephone)
• Transportation (steamboats, rail, internal combustion)
• Vaccination + germ theory + treatments for tropical disease
• Evolution and natural selection (Charles Darwin)
• Relativity (Albert Einstein) and early atomic physics
• Psychology (Sigmund Freud)

Middle East

• Partial importation of industrial-era science and technology

Africa

• Minimal (and colonial) importation of industrial-era science and technology

East (and Central) Asia

• Partial importation of industrial-era science and technology

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Colonial importation of industrial-era science and technology

Americas

• Full-scale development and/or importation of industrial-era science and technology in North America
• Partial to high degree of importation of industrial-era science and
• Technology in Central and South America

Global and Interregional

• Varying and uneven adaptations to industrial-era science and technology

Economic Systems, 1750-1900

Until the end of the 1700s, the world’s economies were principally agricultural. Over the centuries, manufacture, trade, and commerce had become increasingly important but, compared with agriculture, remained relatively minor.

In Europe and North America, this changed dramatically. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the mass production of goods by means of machine power—industrialization—became a key part of Western economies. Trade and commerce skyrocketed, and masses of people moved from rural areas to the city. Capitalism became the dominant economic system. Taken together, these changes formed the Industrial Revolution, whose first stage coincided roughly with the political revolutions taking place in America, France, and the Atlantic world.

Although industrialization was a “revolution” only in a metaphorical sense—it lasted decades and had no clear-cut beginning or end—it changed life in Europe and the rest of the world as thoroughly as its political counterparts. It placed new machines and inventions at the disposal of ordinary people. It affected old social classes and created new ones. It changed the way million worked, where they lived, and how they understood political problems. By 1900, the United States and most of Europe had industrialized and urbanized. Many other parts of the world were starting to follow suit.

Europe

• From protoindustrialization to Industrial Revolution (ca. 1780s–1840s; steam engine, coal, iron, textiles)
• Second Industrial Revolution (late 1800s; steel, electricity, petroleum)
• Factory system
• Free-market vs. state-sponsored industrialization
• Industrial-era communications and transport
• Free-market capitalism (classical economists = Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill) vs. state capitalism
• Trade-unionist and socialist (Karl Marx) reactions to capitalism
• Limited-liability corporations and other financial instruments (central banks, stock exchanges, gold standard)
• Panic of 1873 and Long Depression (1870s–1890s)
• Rise of middle and industrial working classes

Middle East

• State-sponsored and limited industry (Muhammad Ali in Egypt, Tanzimat reforms in Ottoman Turkey)
• Construction of Suez Canal (transnational company = Suez Canal Company)
• Resources (cotton, petroleum)

Africa

• Economic imperialism by Western powers
• Continued reliance on African coerced labor by Western economies 
• Construction of railroads by Western powers (+ Suez Canal)
• Transnational company = early components of Unilever
• Resources (gold, diamonds, rubber, ivory, palm oil)

East (and Central) Asia

• Economic imperialism by Western powers in China (Opium Wars, foreign concessions and treaty ports)
• Transnational company = Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company
• State-sponsored and limited industrialization in China (self-strengthening movement)
• State-sponsored and full industrialization in Japan (Meiji Restoration of 1868, zaibatsu)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Economic imperialism by Western powers
• Construction of railroads, telegraphs, and infrastructure by Western powers
• British industrialization of Indian cotton trade
• Transnational company = British East India Company
• Resources (cotton, coffee, metals, rubber, petroleum)

Americas

• Industrial Revolution (ca. 1780s–1840s) and Second Industrial Revolution (late 1800s) in the United States
• Factory system
• Free-market capitalism in the United States
• Limited-liability corporations and other financial instruments (central banks, stock exchanges, gold standard)
• Rise of middle and industrial working classes (trade unionism)
• State-sponsored industrialization and limited industrialization in Latin America (late 1800s)
• Economic imperialism in Latin America (transnational company = United Fruit Company)
• Resources (metals, petroleum, guano, rubber, fruit, coffee, sugar)

Global and Interregional

• Widespread protoindustrialization
• International impact of industrialization (importation by colonial powers, state-sponsored imperialism)
• Economic imperialism by Western powers (raw materials, consumer markets, transnational corporations, “banana republics”)
• Population growth and urbanization
• Oceanic whaling and sealing in search of oil

Social Interactions and Organizations, 1750-1900

The 1750–1900 era witnessed tremendous change in how societies worldwide were composed and organized. These changes resulted from a combination of political transformation and economic industrialization.

On the political front, revolutions strove to make governments more representative and more responsive to people’s needs, and in a number of cases they succeeded. Industrialization and urbanization transformed class structures, and while systems of coerced labor did not disappear, the most extreme forms of slavery were gradually done away with. Whether they were based on class or on ethnic, religious, or gender identity, hierarchies and caste systems tended to break down or weaken, and if they remained in place, they heightened social discontent.

Migration took place on an epic scale for both economic and political reasons. The best-known examples of migration are the mass movements from Europe and China to the Americas, but it occurred in other areas as well. The roles of women also changed in many societies, although most notably in Europe and the Americas.

Europe

• Class diversification (impact of revolutions and industrialization; growth of industrial working class, rise of middle class)
• Serfdom in Russia (uprisings, emancipation)
• Migration to the Americas (Irish Potato Famine, anti-Jewish pogroms)
• Emergence of modern feminism and suffragette movements (Mary Wollstonecraft, Olympe de Gouges, Emmeline Pankhurst)
• Industrialization and women (domestic sphere)

Middle East

• Millets
• Tanzimat reforms and limited social liberalization
• Corvée labor (Suez Canal)
• Veiling of women

Africa

• Racially segregationist policies in Western-controlled colonies (native elites)
• East African slave trade and Atlantic slave trade
• Indian migration to East and South Africa
• Imperialism’s impact on women’s roles

East (and Central) Asia

• Social stratification and increased tensions in Qing China (opium addiction, Taiping Rebellion)
• Social stratification in Tokugawa Japan
• Meiji restoration in Japan (rise of merchants, samurai privilege abolished)
• Indentured servitude (coolie labor)
• Chinese migration throughout Southeast Asia
• Missionary efforts against Chinese foot binding

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Racially segregationist policies in Western-controlled colonies (native elites)
• British undermining of Hindu caste system
• Indentured servitude (coolie labor)
• Transportation to Australia
• Indian migration throughout Southeast Asia, East Africa, and South Africa
• Chinese migration throughout Southeast Asia
• Reaction to migration (White Australia Policy)
• Sati + veiling of women

Americas

• Class diversification (impact of revolutions and industrialization; growth of industrial working class, rise of middle class)
• Trade unions and labor movement
• Continued reliance on African slavery
• Migration from Europe and Asia (Chinese Exclusion Act)
• Emergence of modern feminism and suffragette movements (Susan B. Anthony, Seneca Falls Convention)
• Industrialization and women (domestic sphere)

Global and Interregional

• Urbanization
• Expansion of resource extraction and cash-crop monoculture as forms of labor
• Persistence, then gradual fading, of slave systems
• Seasonal and permanent migration (Europe and Asia to the Americas, Chinese and Indians in Indian Ocean basin)
• Anti-immigrant sentiment

Humans and Environments, 1750-1900

Arguably, the period 1750–1900 can be described as the era when human beings consistently began to influence their environment more than they were influenced by it. There is no doubting the fact that industrialization and technological advancement exponentially increased human impact on the environment. This trend continued into the twentieth century and has shown no signs of stopping in the twenty-first.

In a macroscopic development that affected agriculture, patterns of human settlement, and the ability to explore and exploit the polar regions, the Little Ice Age, which had persisted since around 1500 (with steady cooling even before that), finally ended during the mid-1800s.

Europe

• Industrial-era pollution (carbon-based and fossil-fuel emissions)
• Industrial-era resource extraction (mining)
• Earth shaping (major canal systems, road and rail networks)
• Vaccination (late 1700s) and germ theory (mid-1800s)
• Severity of cholera and tuberculosis worsened by industrial-era living conditions
• Resources (coal, metals, timber)

Middle East

• Earth shaping (Suez Canal)
• Resources (cotton, petroleum)

Africa

• Industrial-era resource extraction by colonial powers (mining and cash-crop monoculture)
• Treatments for tropical diseases like malaria allow Western penetration of African interior
• Resources (gold, diamonds, ivory, rubber, fruit, palm oil)
• Species endangerment (elephants)

East (and Central) Asia

• Industrial-era resource extraction by colonial powers (mining and cash-crop monoculture)
• Species extinction and endangerment (sables, otters)
• Resources (tea, silk, cotton)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Industrial-era resource extraction by colonial powers (mining and cash-crop monoculture)
• Treatments for diseases like malaria allow Western penetration of tropical interior
• Resources (cotton, rubber, spices, coffee, metals, petroleum)

Americas

• Industrial-era pollution (carbon-based and fossil-fuel emissions)
• Industrial-era resource extraction (mining and cash-crop monoculture)
• Earth shaping (Erie and Panama Canals, road and rail networks)
• Species extinction and endangerment (passenger pigeon, bison)
• Treatments for diseases like malaria allow Western penetration of tropical interior
• Resources (coal, metals, petroleum, timber, meat, fruit, sugar, coffee, rubber, guano)

Global and Interregional

• Little Ice Age ends (mid-1800s)
• Permanent and seasonal migrations (Eurasia to the Americas; regional movements within Indian Ocean basin)
• Species extinction and endangerment (whales, fur seals, walruses)