Industrialization & Economics
Consumer goods
Any tangible commodity produced and subsequently purchased to satisfy the current wants and perceived needs of the buyer. A marked increase in the consumption and variety consumer goods by individuals from different economic and social backgrounds is a key effect of the Industrial Revolution.
Economic Imperialism
Control of a country’s economy by the businesses of another nation
Indian National Congress
Political party that became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement.
Marxism
A body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology, a theory of history, and an economic and political program. Marxism, as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist movements, became the doctrine of many communist partie
Dutch East India Company
Trading company founded in the Dutch Republic (present-day Netherlands) in 1602 to protect that state’s trade in the Indian Ocean. As a result of corruption and debt it was dissolved in 1799 and control in Indonesia and Southeast Asia shifted to the Dutch government.
Infrastructure
Basic physical systems of a business or nation—transportation, communication, sewage, water, and electric systems are all examples of infrastructure. These systems tend to be high-cost investments and are vital to a country's economic development and prosperity.
Distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty.
Settler colonies
Sepoys/Sepoy Rebellion
South Asian soldiers who served in the British army in India/1857 revolt of Indian soldiers against the British caused by a military practice in violation of the Muslim and Hindu faiths.
Proletariat
In Marxist theory, the class of workers in an industrial society.
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
HSBC) was established in 1865 to finance trade between Europe and Asia. Initially founded in the British colony of Hong Kong it benefitted from the opening of China to trade, including the opium trade.
Limited liability
Condition under which the loss that an owner (shareholder) of a business firm may incur is limited to the amount of capital invested by him in the business and does not extend to his personal assets. Acceptance of this principle by business enterprises and governments was a vital factor in the development of large-scale industry, because it enabled business concerns to mobilize large amounts of capital from a wide variety of investors who were understandably unwilling to risk their entire personal fortunes in their investments.
Raj
In many Indian languages, it literally means Prince or Royalty though is often used to mean something more like the English term of empire and as such is often used in reference to the Mughal Raj and the British Raj: the period of direct colonial rule of India by the British Empire.
Self-Strengthening Movement
A late nineteenth century movement in which the Chinese modernized their army and encouraged Western investment in factories and railways.
Radicalism
Western European political philosophy during the nineteenth century; advocated democracy and reforms favoring lower classes.
Free trade
Policy by which a government does not discriminate against imports or interfere with exports by applying tariffs (to imports) or subsidies (to exports). Free trade came to what would become the United States as a result of American Revolutionary War and China as a result of the Treaty of Nanking (1842).
Developments in steel, chemicals & petroleum, precision machinery, and electricity/electronics that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Second Industrial Revolution
Great Trek
The emigration of some 12,000 to 14,000 Boers from Cape Colony in South Africa between 1835 and the early 1840s, in rebellion against the policies of the British government and in search of fresh pasturelands. The Great Trek is regarded by Afrikaners as a central event of their 19th-century history and the origin of their nationhood.
Taiping Rebellion
(1853-1864) Revolt in southern China against the Qing Empire.
Revolutions of 1848
Democratic and nationalistic revolutions, most of them unsuccessful, that swept through Europe.
Treaty of Nanking
(1842) Treaty ending the Opium War that ceded Hong Kong to the British.
Financial instrument/place where investors buy and sell shares in public companies with the advantage that they provide a free flow of capital to finance industrial expansion.
Stock Market
- The application of Darwin’s philosophy of natural selection to human society
Social Darwinism
Meiji Restoration
The restoration of the Meiji emperor in Japan in 1868 that began a program on industrialization and centralization of Japan following the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Socialism
Economic and political philosophy based on the idea that the benefits of economic activity should be equitably distributed throughout a society.
Transnational business
A commercial enterprise that operates substantial facilities, does business in more than one country, and does not consider any particular country its national home.
Siam
Southeast Asian nation (modern day Thailand) ruled by an absolute monarch. Never having been formally colonized it was influenced by British colonies to the west (Burma and India) and the French colonies to the east (French Indochina). Its economy was based on rice production. The state employed Western technical advisers and developed a legal system along Western lines. Bangkok was its capital.
Corporation that developed palm oil plantations in West Africa and the Congo region of Africa. Backed by King Leopold's colonial forces of Belgium and financed by the Lever brothers of Britain it would become one of the world's largest food corporations
Unilever
Sokoto Caliphate
West African Empire that became a part of northern Nigeria. It was founded by the charismatic Fulani Islamic scholar and political leader Usman dan Fodio upon his conquest of the Hausa people.
System of Checks and Balances
Constitutional system in which each branch of government places limits on the power of other branches.
Marathas
Indian power that existed from 1674 to 1818 and ruled over a large area of the Indian sub-continent. The Marathas are credited to a large extent for ending Mughal rule in India.
Edible vegetable oil derived from the fruit of the oil palms, primarily the African oil palm. By around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries
Palm Oil
Manifest Destiny
Concept of U.S. territorial expansion westward to the Pacific Ocean that saw the occupation of the rest of the continent as a divine right of the American people. The term was used to justify the U.S. annexation of Oregon, New Mexico, and California and later U.S. involvement in Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines.
Duma
The Russian parliament
Monroe Doctrine
(1823) Policy issued by the United States in which it declared that the Western Hemisphere was off limits to colonization by other powers
Seven Years’ War
(1756-1763) Conflict fought in Europe and its overseas colonies; in North America, also known as the French and Indian War.