AP World History Unit 5 Cheatsheet: Revolutions, 1750-1900

• Core concepts: Reason, empiricism, natural rights, social contract
• Key shift: Questioned established traditions in religion, politics, and society
• Political philosophers developed ideas about:
  • Individual rights and freedoms
  • Legitimate basis for government authority
  • Role of reason in public life
• Impact: Preceded revolutions and rebellions; influenced reform movements for suffrage, slavery abolition, serfdom's end
• Women's rights emergence: Wollstonecraft, de Gouges, Seneca Falls (1848)—challenged political and gender hierarchies

• Definition: New sense of commonality based on language, religion, customs, territory
• Government use: Fostered unity among subjects
• Nationalist goals:
  • Challenge existing boundaries
  • Seek unification of fragmented regions
  • Resist colonial/imperial rule
• Examples of nationalist movements:
  • German and Italian unifications
  • Balkan nationalisms
  • Propaganda Movement (Philippines)
  • Māori nationalism (New Zealand)
  • Puerto Rican nationalism (Lola Rodríguez de Tió)

What changed:

• New nation-states emerged from revolutions
• New social classes and hierarchies developed
• Economic systems shifted from mercantilism to capitalism
• Technology transformed production and communication
• Urbanization and migration accelerated
• Rights expanded (suffrage, abolition, serfdom's end)

What continued:

• Enlightenment ideas built on earlier intellectual traditions
• Nationalism drew on existing cultural identities
• Hierarchies persisted (gender, class) despite reforms
• Some regions (Asia, Africa, Middle East) resisted or adapted industrialization on their own terms