AP World UNIT 1 REVIEW (Everything you NEED to KNOW!)

oh hello and if I'm not mistaken you are a stressed out AP World History student studying for your unit 1 exam we'll try out that armpit sweat and settle in Because by the time this video is done you're going to have everything you need to know to crush that exam like a trembling grape in your mind Vice I'm Steve heimler and I'm going to be your guide so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it so the time period for unit one is Circa 1200 to 1450 and the basic idea of this unit is to drop in on the various major civilizations around the world and understand how they are building and maintaining their state now hold on what in the fresh heck do I mean by state a fine question to ask and I shall answer present in AP World History state does not mean like you know Ohio or Delaware instead state is a territory that is politically organized under a single government so in today's terms the United States would be a state or Japan would be a state Etc a territory politically organized under one government you smell what I'm stepping in good because states are what unit one is all about so let's begin our worldwide state tour by dropping in on the Chinese and seeing what they're up to but before we do it let me just mention that this video is part of a larger resource that's going to help you get an A in your class in a 5 live on your exam in May it's called the AP World History heimler review guide and it's got whole unit review videos that you're not going to find here on YouTube it's got note guides to go along with them practice multiple choice questions practice exams and answer keys for everything so if you need help studying in the fastest way possible for this course then go check it out and now back to China now during this period the folks in charge call themselves The Song Dynasty and they were in power from 960 to 12. 79 okay stop for a second do you need to know those exact dates that just flew out of my mouth hole no you're never going to be asked to produce a specific date on your exam but I mentioned it just so you know where we are in the timeline that's all don't freak out anyway the main question we need to answer here is this how did the Song Dynasty maintain and justify its rule in other words how did the Song Dynasty run their state and how did they stay in charge I'm going to give you two main methods they use first they maintain and justify their rule by emphasizing Confucianism this was a philosophy that defined Chinese culture from its earliest days and while it fell into the background during some of the previous dynasties the Song Dynasty carried over a Revival of Confucianism from the tong Dynasty which came right before of the song because it was a Revival of an old philosophy we call it neo-confucianism Neo meaning new and so we get new Confucianism but the newness of this revival also indicates some change in Confucianism itself and the main change you should know is that Neo Confucian sought to raid confusion thought of the influence especially of Buddhism which had influenced it significantly in Prior Century now one of the main ideas at the center of Confucianism is that the nature of society is hierarchical meaning that there are prescribed and proper orders for everything there are those above and there are those below citizens submit to the state women submit to men Juniors submit to Elders children submit to parents pigeons submit to uh I don't know they're pigeon Masters I don't write that down I just ran out of examples anyway in order to achieve Harmony in society those below needed to defer to those above and those above needed to care properly for those below important partial to this societal Arrangement was the idea of filial piety which emphasized the necessity and virtue of children obeying and honoring their parents and their grandparents and even their deceased ancestors so you can see how powerful a philosophy like this would be for binding Chinese Society together like everyone has their place and everyone has their role now within this confusion hierarchy it's going to be important for you to know about the place of women with the Revival of Confucianism and song China women were relegated to the subordinate position specifically women were stripped of legal rights and endured social restriction far more than they had under previous dynasties now in terms of legal rights a woman's property became her husband's property or if she was widowed or divorced she could not remarry so that's kind of a bummer but don't worry because women also endured social restrictions in song China as well first of all women only had limited access to education second women in more Elite circles were made to endure the practice of foot binding and what this means is that young girls had their toes bent under their feet and bound with cloth until they broke and that meant they could not walk easily or sometimes even at all and why in the world would they do this well it was kind of a status symbol among the elites like a wife who couldn't walk couldn't work and if you were wealthy enough your wife didn't have to work and you could just hire servants or get yourself a second or third wife okay now the second Way song rulers maintained and Justified their rule was through the expansion of the Imperial bureaucracy okay hold on again what the crap is a bureaucracy well a bureaucracy is a government entity arranged in a hierarchical fashion that carries out the will of the emperor so the emperor makes the rules and then the bureaucracy is made up of all the folks who make sure that everyone keeps the rule so during the Song Dynasty the Imperial bureaucracy grew in scope and thus helped them to maintain their rules how so well in order to get a job in the bureaucracy eligible men had taken past a civil service examination which was heavily based on Confucian classes now the reason why this is significant is because by employing this system bureaucratic jobs were earned on the basis of marriage that meant that the most qualified people got the jobs and not the emperor's cousin Cletus well I don't know nothing about running no state but sure I'll take the job now theoretically the civil service exam was open to Men of all socioeconomic statuses but in reality to study for this exam required a guy to be rich enough not to work and devote himself to study all right you feel what's happening in your brain oh that is learning anyway long story short song China is doing pretty well in their State Building efforts so let's consider how Chinese traditions influence neighboring regions like this one this one and this one now during the Song Dynasty the kingdoms of Korea Japan and Vietnam were all rising in prominence and because of their proximity to or relationships with China each of them were influenced by Chinese tradition for example in Korea they used a similar Civil Service examination and testing officials to enter bureaucratic work they also adopted Buddhism on which more later the point is the tactics which China used to maintain their rules spread and influence neighboring states all right let's turn the corner now and consider the role of Buddhism in song China now Buddhism originated in India and then spread to China long before the Song Dynasty arrived and the teachings of Buddhism Center on what are known as the four noble truths which are life is suffering we suffer because we crave and we see suffering when we cease craving and then the fourth Noble Truth explains how to cease craving and that is to live a moral life according to the Eightfold Path now Buddhism shared some beliefs with Hinduism like the cycle of death and rebirth known as reincarnation and the ultimate goal which is to dissolve into the Oneness of the universe a state the Buddhists call Nirvana Okay now what's equally important here is that you know how Buddhism changed from its original form as it spread into new for example in Sri Lanka taravada Buddhism was the local flavor and it basically confined the practice of Buddhism to monks and monasteries doing their best to get all enlightened all by their lonely selves and that was because they believed that people outside of monasteries like regular schmo's like you and me were too occupied with the world to ever really get a bite of that juicy Nirvana sand but over in East Asia we have the Mahayana branch of Buddhism which encouraged a broader participation in Buddhist practices additionally the bodhisattvas or those who had attained Enlightenment made it their aim to help others along the path to Enlightenment as well so Mahayana Buddhists were like Hey we're going to help you and Terra Vada Buddhists were like good luck y'all anyway what you really need to remember is that these new forms of Buddhism arose as this belief system interacted with various Asian cultures okay now the final consideration for State Building in song China is their economy and oh baby it was perfect so the song rulers inherited the prosperity and beginnings of population growth from the previous Tong and sway dynasties and so song rulers only increased that prosperity and made way for a population explosion like between the 8th and 10th centuries the population doubled to which I say huh that anyway the main economic development you need to know here is the commercialization of the song economy and essentially that just means that manufacturers and artisans in China began to produce more Goods than they consumed and then they sold those excess goods in markets in China and then across Eurasia if you want to know two of the most significant Goods they traded and I know you do then remember porcelain and silk additionally now that China was swimming in piles of money like Scrooge McDuck Innovations in agriculture paved the way for a population explosion one of the most significant agricultural Innovations was the introduction of Champa rice gang anyway this particular strand of rice was introduced to China from the Champa Kingdom you're like man what's the big deal about rice I'll tell you what the big deal is Chomper rice matured early resisted drought and could be harvested multiple times a year that meant way more food to stuff in people's mouth holes and that led to significant population growth because as you may know more food equals more babies and finally the last development that facilitated the growth of the song economy were Innovations in transportation perhaps the most important of which was the expansion of the Grand Canal which facilitated trade and communication among China's various regions so the point is song China was doing just fine during this period and that means it's time to check in with developments in Dar all Islam during this period now the term Dar all Islam can be translated as the house of Islam it basically refers to all the places in the world where Islamic faith was the organizing principle of civilizations during this time and that's basically in all these places right here now although we're going to focus on Islam here you need to know that in the heartland of the Muslim faith two other major religions were practiced and you need to know something about each first was Judaism and that was the ethnic religion of the Jews which centered on the teaching of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible the second was Christianity which was kind of like an extension of Judaism centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ and his life death and resurrection and then third there was Islam which was also related to Judaism and Christianity the prophet Muhammad claimed to be the final prophet in the line of God's Messengers that stretched back through Jewish and Christian scripture he taught his followers that salvation would be found in righteous action like alms giving him prayer and fasting now each of these religions were monotheistic which means they believed in one God not many gods like in Hinduism for example and wherever those religions were practiced Believers used those religions and principles to shape their society and here as I said we're going to focus on Islam as a belief system that shaped cultures and Society so let's see how that happens shall we now before 1200 various Muslim empires Rose to dominance across afro-eurasia but in the time leading up to 1200 it was the Abbasid caliphate whose Center of power was located in Baghdad that was kind of a big deal it's going to be important for you to know that the Abbasid caliphate was ethnically Arab so put that in your pocket and we'll come back to in a minute anyway by 1200 the abbasic caliphate had begun to break up and lose its powerful position at the center of the Muslim world and so as the Abbasid power waned several new Islamic political entities arose and each of them were dominated not by Arab people but by turkic people so pay attention to that change yes Muslim empires were still around but now the dominant Empires were led by ethnic Turks not Arabs and for the sake of illustration we could talk about the seljuk Empire the mamluk sultanate or the Delhi sultanate but you only really need to know one of them so just for poops and Giggles let's spend some time with the soldier so the seljuk empire was established in the 11th century here in Central Asia by turkic pastoralists known as the you know Celtics anyway the bosses needed military help open their projects of territorial expansion and keeping the diverse people groups in their empire in line so they went ahead and brought in these seljuk Warriors big mistake and after some time it turned out that the Celtics could see the weaknesses in the Abbasid regime and so they went ahead and fought with the abbasids instead of an Empire all their own now to be clear the seljuk Empire didn't entirely displace the Abbasid Empire that honor would go to the Mongols who sacked Baghdad in 1258 and flushed the remains of the Abbasid Empire down the historical toilet we'll talk all about the Mongols in unit two but for now you just need to know that while the abbasids remained in power to a more limited degree claiming to be the religious figurehead for Islam it was the seljuks who were now wearing the pants of power in the region okay now the point is this during the period 1200 to 1450 the dominance of Arab Muslim empires were fading while turkic Muslim empires rose up to replace so as I said before that was a big change but even so the new Muslim empires also continued some practices from the former Empire for example on these new turkic empires it was mostly the military that administered the states and also they continued the practice of establishing Sharia law as the organizing principle of their legal systems which is a legal code based on the Quran and also you need to know some of the major cultural and scientific Innovations coming out of the Muslim World during this period for example you had Muslim scholar Nasir al-din al-tusi who made significant advances in mathematics and even invented trigonometry so you know if you hate your trig class blame it on head also Muslim Scholars preserve the great works of Greek moral and natural Philosophy from ancient luminaries like Plato and Aristotle by translating them into Arabic and making extensive commentaries upon them and a lot of this work was done by Arab scholars in a place called The House of Wisdom in Baghdad it was a library with a metric butt load of scholarly Works established under the Abbasid Empire during what became known as the Golden Age of Islam and if you know anything about the Renaissance in European history around the 15th century you'll know that it began after a rediscovery of those ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts if it weren't for those Arabic translations preserving those Works those Europeans would have been as my grandpappy used to say more confused than a fart in a fan Factory and it'll be important for you to remember that during this period Dar al-islam along with song China represented the center of the world scholarship and wealth okay now the last thing you need to know with respect to DAR all Islam has to do with expansion of Muslim rule throughout afro-eurasia during this period and that happened in basically three ways first Muslim empires expanded through military expansion and we already saw this with the establishment of the seljuk the mamlik and the Delhi sultanate second expansion occurred through the work of traveling Muslim merchants much of North Africa was ruled by Muslims and that reality stimulated trade in the movement of merchants throughout Africa and over in West Africa the Empire of Mali gradually converted to Islam for many reasons but Chief among them was the increased access to trade among daal Islam and then third expansion occurred through the missionary activities of Sufi they represented a new sect of Islam which emphasized mystical experience and was far more open to adapting itself to local beliefs which is why it spread so easily for example much of the conversion that occurred in South Asia was the result of Sufi missionary okay now let's continue our little John's around the world and see what's happening in South Asia here and then southeast Asia right over here and for these places we want to focus first on how belief systems affected their societies and then we're going to look at their efforts in State Building and I know you can already taste that religious sauce so let's get into it now in South and Southeast Asia three main religions vied for dominance Hinduism Buddhism and Islam those three belief systems and their various levels of influence profoundly shape that area of the world and to see their effects let's begin with South Asia now remember what I said earlier namely that Buddhism was born here but that particular belief system had been in Long decline in the land of its birth so by the beginning of our time period in 1200 Buddhists in South Asia were mainly reduced to monastic communities in the North in Nepal and Tibet so if South Asians aren't Buddhists well what did they believe well Hinduism remained the most widespread religion in India but Islam became the second most important and influential religion in the region with the establishment of the Delhi sultanate and because in large parts of India the Muslims were in charge it became the religion of the elite there and then spread throughout southeast Asia as well but even Hinduism itself was undergoing some significant change during this period and for that we need to talk about the bhakti movement it began in the southern part of India as an innovation on traditional polytheistic Hinduism polytheistic just means that they worship many gods but in the bhakti movement Devotion to one of the Hindu gods was emphasized this version of Hinduism became much more attractive to ordinary believers who had grown tired of the complex Hindu hierarchies and sacrifices and so in that way the bhakti move haven't mounted some challenges to the Social and gender hierarchies present in Hindu India now over in Southeast Asia it was mainly Buddhism and Islam they were scrapping it out for dominance okay we talked about belief systems and now let's get our state building on and for that we'll start in South Asia now although the Muslim Delhi sultanate ruled much of Northern India they had difficulty holding on to that rule and imposing a total Muslim State upon the majority Hindu population that's not surprising because religious conversion is not unlike a meatball sub sandwich it only tastes good when it's not shoved down your throat forcibly so one pocket of Hindu resistance against Muslim intrusion was the existence of the rajput Kingdom this was a collection of rival and warring Hindu kingdoms that had existed before Muslim rule in Northern India but despite their constant attempts to kill each other they were able to keep Muslim rule at Bay and then another major Hindu Kingdom rose up in the South during this time as a Counterpoint to Muslim rule in the north namely the vijayanagara Empire established in 1336. now this kingdom was established because of a failed attempt by the Delhi sultanate to extend Muslim rule into the South they sent emissaries to the South to extend Muslim rule but something altogether unexpected occurred those emissaries from the Delhi sultanate were former Hindus who had converted to Islam under pressure from their Muslim conqueror but once they got to the South far away from their Muslim overlords they went ahead and converted back to Hinduism and established a rival Empire and that provides the occasion for an extension of the meatball subprover if you do shove a meatball sub down people's throats then they're gonna probably throw it up and establish a rival Empire in the South so you know very practical advice anyway over in Southeast Asia we had a very diverse set of sea-based and land-based Empires many of which made a name for themselves to their interactions with China and India so let me give you a sea based example first and for that the majapahit kingdom which is based right here in Java from 1293 to 1520.

now this was a Buddhist Kingdom it was one of the most powerful states in southeast Asia though it was located on an island the majapah had maintained its influence not necessarily through Naval power but by controlling sea routes for trade however the majapah hit began to decline when China started supporting its trading rival the sultanate of Malacca right here and then let's end with a consideration of a land-based Empire namely the Khmer Empire which existed right here now it was founded as a Hindu Kingdom but at some point the leadership converted to Buddhism and you can see the influence of these two belief systems in this structure right here known as Angkor Wat it was built as a magnificent Hindu temple but later after the conversion to Buddhism they added many Buddhist elements to the structure without removing the Hindu elements therefore Angora watt stands as a monument both to the Kingdom's religious continuity and its change over time all right now I feel like we've been in this hemisphere for too long so let's hop on over to the other side of the world to the Americas and see how they're building States over there now by 1200 the majority of the population here lived in two major centers of civilization mesoamerica and the Andean civilization and just for poops and Giggles let's begin in mesoamerica I hear you need to know the Aztec empire which was founded in 1345 by the meshika people and this Empire to use the technical historical term was ginormous their capital city called Tenochtitlan was magnificent it was the largest city in the Americas before the Europeans arrived and once the Europeans did arrive they sought and were like Now by 1428 the Aztecs entered an alliance with two other Mesoamerican States and established an Empire with an aggressive program of expansion until at its height the Empire looked like this now in terms of how the Aztecs administered their vast and growing Empire they created an elaborate system of tribute States and that just means that the people that they conquered were required to provide labor for the Aztecs and regular contributions of goods like food and animals and building materials Etc all of those things were their tributes to their Aztec overload additionally enslaved people from those conquered regions played a large role in Aztec religion especially as candidates for Human Sacrifice which was a major part of their belief system you see Kevin here just thought he was going to be conquered by an enemy but no they're going to go ahead and sacrifice them to the guy poor Kevin okay now the other major Center of population in the Americas was located further south in the ndn civilization so the early 1400s the Inca Empire was born which stretched nearly across the entire Andean Mountain Range like the Aztecs Incas Incorporated the land and languages of older Indian Society anyway to maintain power Incas were far more intrusive in the lives of the people they conquered than the Aztecs were for the Aztecs if their various States sent tribute they kind of stayed out of their business for the most part the Incas however developed an elaborate bureaucracy with rigid hierarchies of officials spread throughout the Empire to make sure that their conqueries remained firmly under their thumb to that end Incas also had requirements of the people they conquered but it wasn't so much a tribute system like the Aztec instead the Incas adopted the Midas system which required all people under their rule to provide labor on state projects like large State Farms or mining or military service or state construction projects or whatever and so to wrap up this comparison with a tidy bow you need to remember that the Aztecs were mostly decentralized in how they ruled while the Inca were highly centralized okay now let's move northward and consider one other major civilization here meet the Mississippian culture which was the first large-scale civilization in North America now it grew up around the Mississippi River Valley because the soil there was a real fertile they focused on agriculture now in terms of State Building among the mississippians large towns dominated smaller satellite settlements political additionally they were known for their Monumental Mounds around which their towns were organized the largest of these is a series of about 80 human-built burial mounds and the largest of which is almost about a hundred feet tall constructed by the Cahokia people who were part of the Mississippian culture so that's great and all but you didn't think we weren't going to talk about State Building in Africa did you you're so crazy so I reckon we'll start in East Africa and here we're going to meet the Swahili Civilization now this was a series of cities organized around Commerce which is to say trading along the east African coast and these cities grew more influential over time as they became more involved in the Indian Ocean trade but we're going to talk more about that in unit 2. now each of these cities was independent politically but they shared a common social hierarchy that put the merchant Elite above commoner additionally the Swahili civilization was deeply influenced by Muslim Traders some of whom settled in the various Swahili States and one of the biggest influence Muslim Traders had on these cities was the emergence of a new language namely you know Swahili now the language itself was kind of a hybrid between indigenous African Bantu languages and Arab and the important thing to remember here is that this hybrid language demonstrates the intermingling and cooperation of various cultures anyway as a result of Muslim influence the Swahili States rapidly became Islamic which only increased their integration into the larger world of Islamic trade now over in West Africa there were a series of powerful and highly centralized civilizations that grew up including the Ghana the Molly the song High Empire and just like the states in the East the growth of these Western civilizations was also driven by trade which again gave them reason to become Muslim and you know they did but to be clear it was mostly the elite members and government officials in these Empires who converted to Islam while the majority of the population held on to their indigenous beliefs and traditions but by way of contrast the house of Kingdoms were not centralized Empires but rather a series of city-states which were more like the Swahili states in the East they spoke a Common Language and shared a common culture among themselves and like the Swahili they were organized and grew powerful through trade but not sea-based trade like in the East the house of Kingdoms acted as Brokers of the trans-saharan trade on which more in the next year okay now let's get acquainted with another major civilization in Africa namely the Great Zimbabwe whose capital city was built sometime between 1250 and 1450.