Asia I
Two wars fought between Western powers and China (1839-1842 and 1856-1858) after China tried to restrict the importation of foreign goods, especially opium; China lost both wars and was forced to make major concessions.
What are the Opium Wars?
A series of nineteenth-century treaties in which China made major concessions to Western powers.
What are the Unequal Treaties?
Western Europe's description of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, based on the empire's economic and military weakness and its apparent inability to prevent the shrinking of its territory.
What is "The Sick Man of Europe"?
The most influential proponent of socialism, who predicted working-class revolution as the key to creating an ideal communist future.
Who is Karl Marx?
The political takeover of Japan in 1868 by a group of young samurai from southern Japan. The samurai eliminated the shogun and claimed they were restoring to power the young emperor, Meiji. The new government was committed to saving Japan from foreign domination by drawing upon what the modern West had to offer to transform Japanese society.
What is the Meiji Restoration?
China's program of internal reform in the 1860s and 1870s, based on vigorous application of traditional principles and limited borrowing from the West.
What is the "Self-Strengthening" system?
A spontaneous rebellion that erupted in Russia after the country's defeat at the hands of Japan in 1905; the revolution was suppressed, but it forced the government to make substantial reforms.
What is the Russian Revolution of 1905?
Important reform measures undertaken in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1839; the term means "reorganization."
What are the Tanzimat reforms?
The collapse of China's imperial order, officially at the hands of organized revolutionaries but for the most part under the weight of the troubles that had overwhelmed the imperial government for the previous half-century.
What is the Chinese Revolution of 1911-1912?
A period of internal peace in Japan (1600-1850) that prevented civil war but did not fully unify the country; led by military rulers, or shoguns, from the Tokugawa family, who established a "closed door" policy toward European encroachments.
What is Tokugawa Japan?
Fought over rival ambitions in Korea and Manchuria, this conflict ended in a Japanese victory, establishing Japan as a formidable military competitor in East Asia, marked the first time that an Asian country defeated a European power in battle.
What is the Russo-Japanese War?
The movement of Turkish military and civilian elites that advocated a militantly secular public life and a Turkish national identity; came to power through a coup in 1908.
Who are the Young Turks?
The British working-class political party established in the 1890s and dedicated to reforms and a peaceful transition to socialism, in time providing a viable alternative to the revolutionary emphasis of Marxism.
What is the Labour Party?
The antiforeign movement (1898-1901) led by Chinese militia organizations, in which large numbers of Europeans and Chinese Christians were killed. It resulted in military intervention by Western powers and the imposition of a huge payment as punishment.
What is the Boxer uprising?
The massive Chinese rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty that devastated much of the country between 1850 and 1864; it was based on the millenarian teachings of Hong Xiuquan.
What is the Taiping Uprising?
The site of the initial technological breakthrough of the industrial revolution in the 18th century Britain, where multiple innovations transformed cotton textile production, resulting in an enormous increase in output.
What is the British Textile Industry?
A group of would-be reformers in the mid-nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire that included lower-level officials, military officers, and writers; they urged the extension of Westernizing reforms to the political system.
Who are the Young Ottomans?