Consequences of Industrialization: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
65 flashcard terms for AP World History Unit 6, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 25-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A wave of European colonial expansion (c. 1870–1914) driven by industrial capitalism, nationalism, military technology, and racial ideologies. It brought most of Africa and Asia under European control.
Scramble for Africa
The rapid European colonization of Africa between 1881 and 1914. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent — the rest was carved up among European powers.
Berlin Conference (1884–85)
A meeting of European powers that established rules for colonizing Africa. No African leaders were invited. It formalized the partition of Africa without regard for existing ethnic or political boundaries.
British Raj in India
British Crown rule over India (1858–1947), established after the Sepoy Mutiny replaced East India Company control. Britain extracted raw materials and forced India to buy British manufactured goods.
French Indochina
France's colonial empire in Southeast Asia, including modern Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. France exploited rice, rubber, and other resources while imposing French culture and education.
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch colonial empire in Southeast Asia (modern Indonesia), centered on the lucrative spice trade and later plantation agriculture (rubber, coffee, sugar).
King Leopold's Congo
Belgian King Leopold II's personal colony in the Congo (1885–1908), notorious for extreme brutality — forced rubber collection, mutilations, and the deaths of millions of Congolese.
Cecil Rhodes
British imperialist who dreamed of a Cape-to-Cairo railroad and British control of Africa. He founded the De Beers diamond company and the colony of Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe/Zambia).
Social Darwinism
The misapplication of Darwin's evolutionary theory to human societies, claiming that 'superior' races and nations had a natural right to dominate 'inferior' ones. Used to justify imperialism.
'White Man's Burden'
Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem expressing the idea that Europeans had a duty to 'civilize' non-white peoples. Critics saw it as a self-serving justification for exploitation.
Civilizing Mission
The European belief that colonialism brought progress, Christianity, education, and modern governance to 'backward' peoples — masking economic exploitation with moral rhetoric.
Spheres of Influence
Regions where a foreign power had exclusive trading or investment privileges without formal colonial control. Common in China, where European powers carved out economic zones.
Protectorates vs. Colonies
Protectorates maintained local rulers under European 'protection' and control; colonies were governed directly by the colonial power. Both served European interests.
Suez Canal (1869)
A French-built waterway connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, dramatically shortening the sea route to Asia. Britain seized control in 1882, making Egypt a strategic colony.
Maxim Gun
The first fully automatic machine gun (1884). It gave European forces devastating firepower advantages over African and Asian armies, enabling rapid colonial conquest.
First Opium War (1839–1842)
Britain forced China to open ports and accept opium imports after China tried to ban the drug. It ended with the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing.
Treaty of Nanjing (1842)
The first of China's 'unequal treaties,' forcing China to cede Hong Kong, open five treaty ports, pay indemnities, and grant British citizens extraterritoriality.
Unequal Treaties
A series of treaties imposed on China by Western powers and Japan, granting trade concessions, extraterritoriality, and territorial rights that humiliated and weakened the Qing Dynasty.
Extraterritoriality
The legal principle that foreign nationals in China were subject to their own country's laws, not Chinese law — a deeply humiliating symbol of Chinese sovereignty loss.
Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864)
A massive civil war in China led by Hong Xiuquan, who claimed to be Jesus's brother. It killed 20–30 million people and devastated southern China, weakening the Qing.
Self-Strengthening Movement (1861–1895)
A Chinese reform effort to adopt Western military technology and industrial methods while preserving Confucian values. It failed to modernize China deeply enough to resist imperialism.
Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901)
An anti-foreign uprising by Chinese martial artists ('Boxers') who attacked foreigners and Chinese Christians. An international force crushed the rebellion and imposed further humiliations on China.
Open Door Policy
U.S. proposal (1899) that all nations should have equal trading rights in China, preventing any single power from monopolizing Chinese trade.
Sepoy Mutiny / Rebellion of 1857
A massive uprising of Indian soldiers (sepoys) against the British East India Company, triggered by cultural insensitivity (greased cartridges) but rooted in broader resentment of British rule.
Zulu Resistance
The Zulu Kingdom in southern Africa fought fiercely against British imperialism, winning the Battle of Isandlwana (1879) before ultimately being defeated by British firepower.
Samori Ture
A West African leader who built the Wassoulou Empire and resisted French colonization for over 15 years (1882–1898) using guerrilla tactics and locally manufactured weapons.
Ethiopian Victory at Adwa (1896)
Emperor Menelik II's Ethiopian forces defeated an Italian invasion at the Battle of Adwa, preserving Ethiopian independence — the most significant African military victory against European imperialism.
Indian National Congress (1885)
India's first modern political organization, initially seeking reform within British rule. It eventually became the vehicle for the independence movement under leaders like Gandhi and Nehru.
Philippine Revolution
Filipinos revolted against Spanish rule (1896) and then against American colonization (1899–1902) after the U.S. acquired the Philippines from Spain.
Global Capitalism
The expansion of industrial capitalism created a world economy where European powers extracted raw materials from colonies, processed them in factories, and sold finished goods back to colonial markets.
Free Trade Ideology
The idea that removing tariffs and trade barriers benefits all nations. In practice, it often meant European manufactured goods flooding colonial markets and destroying local industries.
Raw Material Extraction
Colonial economies were organized to extract resources (rubber, cotton, minerals, timber) for European factories, preventing colonies from developing their own industries.
Cash Crop Economies
Colonial powers forced farmers to grow export crops (cotton, rubber, tea, coffee) instead of food, making colonies dependent on global markets and vulnerable to famines.
Rubber Extraction — Congo and Southeast Asia
Brutal rubber extraction in Leopold's Congo and Dutch Southeast Asian colonies caused immense suffering, including forced labor, mutilations, and population decline.
Tea and Cotton — India
Britain transformed India into a supplier of raw cotton and tea, while flooding India with cheap British textiles, devastating India's traditional handloom industry.
Railroad Construction in Colonies
Europeans built railroads in colonies to transport raw materials to ports for export, not to benefit local populations. Rail networks served extraction, not development.
Telegraph Networks
Undersea telegraph cables connected colonial outposts to European capitals by the 1860s, enabling rapid communication and tighter imperial control over distant territories.
Steamship Routes
Steam-powered ships replaced sailing vessels, making colonial trade faster and more reliable. Regular steamship lines connected European ports to colonies worldwide.
Indian Indentured Laborers
After abolition, millions of Indians were recruited as indentured laborers to work on plantations in the Caribbean, East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific — a system critics called 'new slavery.'
Chinese Coolies
Chinese laborers recruited (often under coercive conditions) to work on railroads, mines, and plantations in the Americas, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.
Irish Diaspora
The Irish Potato Famine (1845–1852) drove millions of Irish to emigrate to the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia, creating one of the largest 19th-century migration waves.
Italian Emigration
Economic hardship drove millions of Italians to emigrate to the Americas (especially Argentina, Brazil, and the United States) between 1880 and 1920.
Japanese Migration
Japanese workers migrated to Hawaii, the American West Coast, and Brazil, seeking economic opportunity but often facing racial discrimination and exclusion laws.
Push-Pull Factors of Migration
Migration was driven by push factors (poverty, famine, persecution, lack of land) and pull factors (job opportunities, available land, religious freedom, family networks).
Urbanization — Global
Industrialization drove urbanization worldwide — not only in Europe but in colonial port cities (Bombay, Shanghai, Lagos, Buenos Aires) that grew rapidly as trade hubs.
Working Class Formation
Industrialization created a distinct working class — factory laborers, miners, and railroad workers — who shared common experiences of exploitation and began organizing collectively.
Labor Unions
Workers organized unions to collectively bargain for higher wages, shorter hours, and safer conditions. Governments initially suppressed unions but gradually legalized them.
Socialism — Overview
A political and economic ideology advocating collective or state ownership of the means of production, economic equality, and workers' rights — a response to industrial capitalism's inequalities.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Authors of the Communist Manifesto (1848), which argued that history is driven by class struggle and predicted that workers would overthrow capitalists and create a classless society.
Communist Manifesto (1848)
Marx and Engels' influential pamphlet declaring 'Workers of the world, unite!' It analyzed capitalism as exploitative and predicted proletarian revolution as historically inevitable.
Utopian Socialism
Early socialist thinkers (Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon) who proposed ideal cooperative communities as alternatives to industrial capitalism, but lacked revolutionary programs.
Anarchism
A political ideology rejecting all forms of government authority. Key thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin) advocated voluntary cooperation rather than state control.
Social Gospel Movement
A Protestant Christian movement applying religious ethics to social problems — poverty, inequality, child labor — arguing that Christians had a duty to reform society.
Second Industrial Revolution
A new wave of industrialization (c. 1870–1914) based on steel, electricity, chemicals, and the internal combustion engine — driving even more dramatic economic transformation.
Bessemer Process
A method for mass-producing steel cheaply (1856), enabling the construction of skyscrapers, bridges, railroads, and ships that transformed infrastructure worldwide.
Electricity
The harnessing of electrical power (Edison, Tesla) revolutionized factories, cities, and daily life — enabling electric lighting, motors, and eventually consumer appliances.
Railroads — Global Impact
Railroads connected interiors to coasts, shortened travel times, created national markets, and transformed landscapes. They were instruments of both industrialization and imperialism.
Meiji Restoration — Japan's Response
Japan responded to the threat of imperialism with rapid self-modernization (1868–1912), adopting Western technology, military organization, and industrial methods to become an imperial power itself.
Russo-Japanese War (1905)
Japan defeated Russia — the first modern military victory of an Asian power over a European one. It shocked the world and demonstrated that non-Western nations could compete with European empires.
Japan as Imperial Power
After modernizing, Japan became an imperial power itself, colonizing Taiwan (1895), Korea (1910), and establishing a sphere of influence in Manchuria.
Environmental Impact of Industrialization
Industrialization caused deforestation, air and water pollution, resource depletion, and landscape transformation on a global scale — effects that accelerated through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Settler Colonialism
A form of colonialism where large numbers of European settlers permanently occupied indigenous lands (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Algeria), displacing native populations.
Neo-Colonialism (Roots)
Even as formal colonialism declined, economic structures persisted — former colonies remained dependent on exporting raw materials to industrialized nations, a pattern called neo-colonialism.
Global Migration Patterns — 19th Century
The 19th century saw massive migration: Europeans to the Americas, Indians and Chinese to plantations worldwide, and rural-to-urban migration within industrializing nations.
Abolition and Indentured Labor Connection
As the slave trade was abolished, colonial powers turned to indentured labor — recruiting workers from India, China, and elsewhere under contracts that often resembled slavery.