Humans & the Environment
Seasonal winds that enabled predictable long-distance voyages across the Indian Ocean.
Monsoon winds
Elite Ottoman infantry recruited through devshirme.
Janissaries
Mongol dynasty founded by Kublai Khan in China.
Yuan Dynasty
Akbar’s syncretic religious experiment blending Islam, Hinduism, and more.
Divine Faith (Din-i Ilahi)
Valuable resource that made Mali and Songhai wealthy.
Gold
Chinese invention that improved maritime navigation.
Magnetic compass
Swahili coastal elites constructed homes and mosques from this material, which kept buildings cool in tropical climates.
Coral stone
Aztec “floating gardens” used to expand available farmland.
Chinampas
Inca labor tax requiring community work on public projects.
Mita system
Islamic empire that captured Constantinople in 1453.
Ottoman Empire
East African city-states blending Bantu and Arabic cultures.
Swahili city-states
Trade network linking East Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia.
Indian Ocean Trade Network
Rice variety from Southeast Asia that boosted Chinese population growth.
Champa Rice
This East African resource—used in luxury goods, devotional items, and decorative arts—tied environmental extraction to Indian Ocean commercial networks and Swahili elite culture.
Ivory
Mountain agriculture technique used by the Inca to maximize productivity.
Terrace farming
In the Mali Empire, these traveling poet-historians preserved genealogies, political history, and cultural memory through oral tradition, reinforcing elite status and social hierarchy.
Griots
West African empire that reached its height under Sunni Ali.
Songhai Empire
Travel writer whose accounts documented Mali, India, and China.
Ibn Battuta
Port city controlling trade through the Strait of Malacca.
Malacca
Gunpowder weapons used by the Ottomans to breach city walls.
Cannons
This Southeast Asian crop, introduced from New Guinea, became a staple across islands such as Java and Sulawesi, reshaping diets and enabling population expansion long before European arrival.
Banana
West African empire strengthened by goldfields and Sahel geography.
Mali Empire
Stratified social system of this Mesoamerican empire included nobles, commoners, serfs, and slaves.
Aztec Empire
Mughal ruler who expanded the empire but reversed many tolerant policies.
Aurangzeb
Mughal architectural masterpiece combining Persian, Indian, and Islamic influences.
Taj Mahal
Economic system based on collecting tribute from conquered city-states.
Aztec Tribute System
Indian Ocean ship using triangular sails for maneuverability.
Dhow / lateen-rigged ship
This decentralized stateless society in West Africa governed through kinship networks rather than centralized kingship, challenging students’ assumptions about African political systems.
Igbo (or Ibo) society
This high-yield rice variety, introduced from Southeast Asia to China during the Song and continuing into the Yuan and Ming periods, supported population growth by allowing two harvests per year.
Champa Rice
Islamic empire that incorporated enslaved soldiers (mamluks) into governance.
Mamluk Sultanate
Iranian empire that established Twelver Shi’ism as the state religion.
Safavid Empire
In the 13th–15th centuries, Tibetan Buddhism spread into Mongolia under the patronage of this ruling group, creating a long-lasting religious-political alliance.
Mongols
Chinese dynasty that halted state-sponsored oceanic voyages after Zheng He.
Ming Dynasty
Inca communication system using knotted cords.
Quipu
This East African port city was ruled by Muslim merchant elites yet maintained Bantu language and cultural foundations, illustrating long-term syncretism on the Indian Ocean.
Southeast Asian kingdom that engineered massive water reservoirs to support agriculture and temple complexes.
Khmer Empire
Hereditary revenue collectors in Mughal India who managed taxation and local administration.
Zamindars
Chinese dynasties used this Confucian political doctrine to justify rule, arguing that natural disasters or corruption signaled a loss of divine approval.
Mandate of Heaven
Chinese philosophy that shaped statecraft in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
Neo-Confucianism
In the Ottoman Empire, this system allowed individuals to collect taxes on behalf of the state in exchange for a fixed payment to the government, giving the central state revenue while outsourcing local collection.
Tax farming/ Timar system
Islamic astronomers refined this Greek navigational instrument, making it one of the most important tools for maritime and desert navigation.
Astrolabe
This trans-Saharan trade good, mined in the Sahara and traded into West Africa, was as valuable as gold and essential for food preservation and state revenue.
Salt
This West African region saw shifting settlement patterns due to desertification and expansion of trans-Saharan trade routes.
The Sahel region
In the Safavid Empire, this elite slave-soldier system paralleled the Ottoman Janissaries, reinforcing the shah’s authority.
The Ghulam system
In late imperial China, Confucian principles helped limit the power of hereditary nobles by elevating this bureaucratic elite class recruited through rigorous examinations.
Scholar officials/ Literati
This West African city became a major intellectual center of the Islamic world, attracting scholars and producing manuscripts on law, science, and mathematics.
Timbuktu
To increase state revenue, the Safavid Empire attempted to monopolize this major export commodity, controlling production and selling it to European and Ottoman buyers.
Silk
Chinese water-powered machines that automated bellows, trip hammers, and grain processing.
Water wheel mechanization
Elite women in the Ottoman Empire exercised political and diplomatic influence through this palace institution, especially during the so-called “Sultanate of Women.”
Harem/ Imperial Harem
14th-century pandemic that spread along Mongol trade routes and reshaped global demography.
Black Death
Inca women chosen for textile production and ritual service.
Aclla (Chosen Women)
Central Asian conqueror who attempted to revive a Mongol-style empire through violent campaigns.
Tamerlane (Timur)
Syncretic Southeast Asian blend of Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism seen in Pagan and Srivijaya.
Syncretic Theravada/Indic Buddhism
Central Asian empire that profited heavily by taxing horse trading along Silk Road routes.
Timurid Empire
Ming engineers expanded this major waterway to improve grain transport from southern rice regions to the political capital in the north.
Grand Canal
This forest kingdom in present-day Ghana grew powerful not primarily through gold but through political centralization and the creation of a royal monopoly over firearms imports.
This mosquito-borne disease became endemic in parts of Africa and South Asia, and human populations developed partial genetic resistance through traits like sickle-cell, reflecting long-term environment–human interaction.
Malaria
Under the Ottoman Empire, this system categorized subjects by religious community rather than ethnicity, granting groups legal autonomy but reinforcing stratified social identities.
Millet system
Confucian political ideology in China, Korea, and Vietnam reinforced this concept, which extended patriarchal hierarchy into state legitimacy by modeling rulers’ authority on the father’s authority in the household.
Filial piety
This branch of Islam spread into India and Southeast Asia through trade and spiritual teachers, emphasizing personal devotion, poetry, and mysticism rather than legalistic practice.
Sufism
During 1500–1750, silver from these two countries/ geographical locations flowed through Manila into China, creating the earliest truly global commercial network.
This flexible printing technology spread from China to Korea and Japan, enabling more efficient book production and contributing to literacy and scholarly exchange.
Moveable metal type printing
This era of Japanese history saw elite women lose many inheritance and property rights due to the rise of Neo-Confucian ideology, despite earlier relative autonomy in Heian society.
Tokugawa/ Edo Period
This ancient Persian irrigation method—still used from Iran to Central Asia during 1200–1750—transported groundwater through gently sloped underground tunnels, allowing communities to farm and settle in arid environments without significant evaporation loss.
Qanat system
Tokugawa-era system that required daimyo to spend alternating years in Edo to ensure loyalty.
Sankin-Kotai (Alternate Attendance)
Qing frontier policy establishing hereditary military colonies to govern and assimilate borderlands.
Eight Banner Garrisons
The temple complex of Angkor Wat demonstrates a shift from Hinduism to Buddhism in Cambodia, showing how rulers used this type of cultural adaptation to legitimize changing political and religious identities.
Religious syncretism
Maluku Islands spices whose immense value reshaped Indian Ocean commerce.
Cloves and nutmeg
This extensive system in the Americas included rope bridges, waystations, and paved mountain passages that enabled communication across difficult terrain.
Inca road system
During the period 1200–1750, Tibetan Buddhist teachers spread ritual practices, monastic scholarship, and political authority into Mongolia, where khans adopted Buddhist institutions to legitimize their rule. Historians refer to this cross-regional religious and political partnership as what?
Lamaism