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AP World History Semester 1 Study Guide Notes
Chapter 1: First Peoples, First Farmers - to 4000 BCE
● Neolithic Revolution
○ Also known as Agricultural Revolution
○ ✦​Deliberate cultivation of certain plants and taming and breeding of certain
animals
■ People started to change nature instead of just using it
■ Domestication
● Mutual dependance
○ Hunting and gathering diminished
○ ✦​More food and more resources → growing populations
○ ✦​People settled down
○ Occurred separately and independently in many parts of the world
○ Coincided w/ end of Ice Age - many large mammals went extinct, plants
flourished
○ Fertile Crescent
○ Spread through diffusion and migration
○ Environmental impacts - erosion, deforestation
○ Negative health impacts- tooth decay, amenia, vulnerable to famine and
disease
○ ✦​Technological development- pottery, weaponry, tool-making, metallurgy
Chapter 2: First Civilizations; Cities, States, and Unequal Societies, 3500 BCE - 500 BCE
● Agricultural Revolution transition and patriarchy
○ Hierarchies of Class
■ Inequalities of wealth, status, and power
■ Social Pyramid -- elite, commoners, and slaves
○ Patriarchy
■ ✦​Causes- heavy farm labor, warfare
■ Laws about women’s sexual behaviors
■ Respectable and unrespectable women
■ Decline of goddesses
○ Rise of State
■ Coercion and Consent-- need for organization, monopoly on legitimate
use of violence, religion and political power
■ Writing and Accounting-- literacy and social status, tracking wealth
and property

● 1st Wave Civilizations
○ ✦​Mesopotamia
■ Tigris and Euphrates- wild, unpredictable
● Pessimistic
● Soil erosion
■ Violent, unstable city states
■ Temples called ziggurats
○ Sumer, ✦​Egypt, Nubia 3500-3000 BCE
​
■ Nile- calm, predictable, useful
● Optimistic
● Good soil
■ Security, stability
○ Norte Chico (Peru) 3000-1800 BCE
○ Oxus (Central Asia) 2200-1700 BCE
○ ✦​Indus River Valley (South Asia) 3500-1750 BCE
■ River flooded reliably twice a year
■ ✦​Large, planned cities -- Mohenjo Daro, Harappa
● Centralized draining system, great bath
■ Peaceful
■ Standard weights and measures
■ 1750 declined- theories:conquest, environmental disaster, earthquake
○ Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties 2200-771 BCE
■ Centralized state
■ ✦​Mandate of Heaven
○ Olmec (Mesoamerica) 1200 BCE
■ Arose from series of competing chiefdoms
■ Basalt heads
■ Mother civilization of Mesoamerica
Chapter 3: State and Empire in Eurasia/ North Africa, 500 BCE - 500 CE
● Causes of Declines
○ ✦​Too big, too overextended, and too expensive -- not enough resources
○ Growth of large landowning families who didn’t pay taxes
○ Rivalry among elites → instability, eroded imperial authority
○ Disease
○ ✦​Invading nomads
○ Roman Empire-476
■ Only western half collapsed
■ Germanic tribes

○ Han-220
■ Yellow Turban Rebellion, a major peasant revolt, in 184
■ Invading nomads set up “barbarian states” in China
● Empire building techniques
○ Persia
■ Strong leadership- Cyrus (557-530 BCE) and Darius (522-486 BCE)
■ Governors called satraps in each province, local lower level officials,
imperial spies
■ Tolerance towards religions → gained support
■ Built canal linking Nile and Red Sea
■ Royal Roads
■ Elaborate imperial centers- Persepolis
○ Rome
■ Started off as small city-state
■ 509 BCE-- aristocrats threw off monarchy, established republic
■ Had rule of law and rights of citizens
■ 490s BCE-- launched empire-building enterprise
■ Early 2nd century CE-- extent reached, encompassed all of
mediterranean basin
■ Well motivated- opportunity for soldiers, wealth, food supplies,
resources
■ ✦​Army was “well-trained, well-fed, well-rewarded”
● Alexander the Great
○ Son of Macedonian king Philip II who led takeover of Greece in 338 BCE
○ ✦​Led a massive Greek expedition against Persian Empire (333-323 BCE)
○ Looted and burned Persepolis
○ Annointed as pharaoh in Egypt
○ Died in 323 BCE and empire was divided into three regions, ruled by
Macedonian generals
○ ✦​Caused spread of Greek culture (Hellenistic era 323-30 BCE)
Chapter 4: Culture and Religion in Eurasia/ North Africa, 500 BCE - 500 CE
● Confucianism and gender
○ Heaven- male, Earth- female
○ Women
■ Subordinate, deferential, meek, and modest
■ Educated to better serve their husbands
○ Men

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■ Wen (rationality, scholarship, literacy, art) and Wu (physical and
martial achievements)
■ Only men allowed to partake in civil service exams
Buddhism spread through South East Asia
○ ✦​Egalitarian message appealed to women and lower castes
○ Created monasteries and stupas
○ ✦​State support during the reign of Ashoka (268-232 BCE)
○ Theravada- early version, Buddha wise teacher and model, not divine
○ ✦​Mahayana- formed early centuries CE, help from bodhisattvas (spiritually
developed people), Buddha something of a god, supernatural beings
Daoism and Confucianism focus
○ Daoism
■ Founded by Laozi, who wrote the ​Daodejing​ then vanished into
wilderness
■ Give up material possessions, withdraw from political and social
activism and public life
■ ✦​Alignment with ​dao-​ the way of nature
○ Confucianism
■ Confucius was founder, a thinker and teacher, after death his students
collected his teachings in book called the Analects
■ ✦​Moral example of superiors
● Superior must behave with sincerity, benevolence, and
genuine concern for others
...
Judaism → Christianity, Islam
Judaism monotheism significance
○ One of 1st monotheistic religions
○ Yahweh
■ lofty, transcendent deity of utter holiness and purity, far above world
of nature
■ Demanded exclusive loyalty
Buddhism and Hinduism roots

○ Buddhism
■ Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) was founder
...
Went on six-year spiritual quest and at age 35 he reached
enlightenment
...
Also developed astrolabe
● Gold roads and Mali’s rise to power
○ Linked north and west africa
○ Mali’s highpoint in 14th centuries- monopolized import of horses and metals,
levied taxes on salt
○ Located in west africa, contained Timbuktu and Jenne
● Ibn Battuta 1304-1396
○ Born in Tangier Morocco
○ Scholar, Muslim traveler/explorer
○ Journeys lasted almost 30 years
○ Traversed around 75,000 miles
● Marco Polo 1254- 1324
○ Venetian Merchant
○ Left Italy in 1271 w/ his father and uncle to Asia
○ Stayed in China for 17 years working for emperor Khan before returning
home
○ Later became a prisoner of war, wrote ​The Description of the World/ The
Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 8: China and the World; East Asian Connections 500-1300
● China and the Golden Age
○ Tang(618-907) and Song(960-1279) Dynasties

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○ ✦​Arts and literature flourished
○ Brought back evaluation system
○ Economical revolution- most urbanized, industrial production soared,
production for market
○ Network of internal waterways (great canal)
Japan’s cultural borrowing from Tang and Song Dynasty
○ Completely voluntary
○ Court-rituals, Taxation systems, law codes, government ministries
○ Cities modeled off of Chinese capital Chang’an
○ Chinese Buddhism
○ Still stayed very distinct
China use of tribute system
○ Set of practices that required non Chinese authorities to acknowledge
chinese superiority
○ Send delegation to Chineses court and do rituals, presenting tribute to the
emperor and in return get permission to trade and other gifts
○ Large and powerful nomadic empires raided China, making China actually
give ​them ​tribute to stop
Tang Dynasty attitudes toward Buddhist monasteries
○ Buddhism had established itself by early Tang dynasty, grown big
○ Buddhism became resented by many due to its wealth and foreignness
○ ✦​In 840s state turned against Buddhism, making monks and nuns return to
normal life and either destroying monasteries or turning them to public use
■ Confiscated all wealth and belongings of the monasteries
Chinese inventions
○ Magnetic compass
○ Gunpowder
○ Papermaking
○ Moveable type print
Spread of Champa rice
○ Came from Vietnam ~ 1000 CE
○ Fast-ripening and drought resistant
○ ✦​Allowed for major population growth

Chapter 9: The Worlds of Islam, Afro-Eurasian Connections 600-1500
● Islam and the position of women
○ ✦​Men and women equal as spiritual level
○ ✦​In social terms, women inferior and subordinate
○ Women given control over their own property and dowries

○ Marriage had to be consensual, divorce available for both men and women
○ ✦​Over time, women’s rights lessened-- Veiling and seclusion, removed from
public life
● Cause of the spread of Islam
○ Originally- ​hijra ​to Medina got religion out of Mecca, separating it
○ War and conquest
■ By 644 defeated Sassanid Empire
■ Conquered Spain in early 700s
■ Battle of Talas-stopped China, able to convert Turkic speaking peoples
of Central Asia
○ Trade- Brought Islam to West Africa
○ Turks- Brought Islam to India and Anatolia
Chapter 10: The Worlds of Christendom; Contraction, Expansion, and Division 500-1300
● Centralized and Decentralized regions
○ With collapse of Roman empire any semblance of large-scale centralized rule
in Europe vanished
...
They also both became quite wealthy
● Trade in Medieval Europe
○ ✦​Long distance trade routes revived in High Middle Ages (1000-1300)
○ England to Baltic Coast
○ Italians traded with more established civilizations of Islam and Byzantium
○ Great trading fairs- European merchants met to exchange the products of
their respective areas



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