Deck 18: Afroeurasia and Its Powerful States, 1500-1600

Question 1

The majority of Afroeurasian states in the sixteenth century were organized as

A) proto-democracies.
B) monarchies.
C) republics.
D) tribute-paying dependencies.

Answer 1

monarchies.

Question 2

Why did the trend of greater state centralization in the sixteenth century not affect the Ming dynasty?

A) It was already very centralized.
B) It was opposed by provincial administrative officials.
C) The Ming followed a "live and let live" Confucian philosophy.
D) The Ming were obsessed with territorial expansion.

Answer 2

It was already very centralized.

Question 3

Which sixteenth-century state achieved the greatest territorial expansion?

A) the Ottoman Turkish sultanate
B) Portugal
C) Spain
D) the Byzantine

Answer 3

Spain

Question 4

Which element of the Ottoman state did NOT have a strong military character?

A) ghazis
B) sipahis
C) janissaries
D) judicial courts

Question 5

With the seizing of North African ports, Ottoman power extended to the west as far as

A) Morocco.
B) Algiers.
C) Tunis.
D) Tripoli.

Question 6

Starting with a treaty with France in 1536, European merchants enjoyed

A) safe passage over the Suez portage.
B) reduced tariffs and freedom from Ottoman taxes.
C) Ottoman protection from Turkmen bandits.
D) reduced taxes and freedom from Ottoman tariffs.

Question 7

The Safavid dynasty traced its ancestry to

A) the Ottoman governing elite.
B) the Golden Horde.
C) Tamerlane.
D) Turkic horse archers.

Question 8

Isma'il declared his devotion to ________, the wing of Islamic belief and practice that was taking militant forms in Southwest Asia in the fifteenth century.

A) Shi'ism
B) Safavidism
C) Sunni Islam
D) the Muslim Sufi association

Question 9

In the fifteenth century, the great majority of Muslims were of which religious sect?

A) Shi'ism
B) Safavidism
C) Sunni Islam
D) Muslim Sufi association

Question 10

Ascending to the throne in 1587, Shah ________ created a standing professional army to check the power of rural tribal commanders.

A) Ahmad
B) Abbas
C) Isma'il
D) Isfahan

Question 11

Who founded the northern India dynasty that would become known as the Mughal?

A) Babur
B) Chingis
C) Humayun
D) Akbar

Question 12

Which of the following was NOT characteristic of Akbar's service nobility?

A) They were paid salaries or given rights to farming income.
B) They were given imperial privileges.
C) Their income and privileges were not hereditary.
D) They constituted a land-owning aristocracy.

Question 13

Akbar, who came to the throne as a Muslim, held religious views that were

A) very orthodox.
B) fundamentalist but changing.
C) quite liberal and inclusive.
D) tolerant toward Muslims and Hindus only.

Question 14

Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals, held religious views that were

A) very orthodox.
B) fundamentalists but changing.
C) quite liberal and inclusive.
D) tolerant toward Muslims and Hindus only.

Question 15

By area, what was the largest monarchy in the world in 1800?

A) Mughal
B) Russian
C) Ming
D) Moscovy

Question 16

The land-owning Russian aristocracy was collectively known as the

A) bourgeoisie.
B) Bolsheviks.
C) Boers.
D) boyars.

Question 17

What river valley did Ivan IV's armies seize from regional Muslim rulers between 1552 and 1556?

A) Ural
B) Moskva
C) Volga
D) Neva

Question 18

What were the Russian gun-toting horse soldiers called?

A) Mutaharrik tulai'a
B) Boleros
C) Turkmen
D) Cossacks

Question 19

Japan's aristocratic ruling class were known as

A) daimyo.
B) samurai.
C) shogun.
D) choson.

Question 20

Toyotomi Hideyoshi badly overreached by assaulting ________, which had a navy with heavily armed ships.

A) China
B) Korea
C) Honshu
D) Nobunaga

Question 21

Which of the following was NOT among the kingdoms that gained control of most of Indochina in the late fifteenth century?

A) Myanmar
B) Thailand
C) China
D) Vietnam

Question 22

How did the strongest European states finance armies and administrative bureaucracies?

A) agricultural wealth only
B) commercial wealth only
C) agricultural and commercial wealth
D) internal taxes and external tributes

Question 23

In what state did the Saadian dynasty (1554-1659) emerge as a strong and economically prosperous monarchy?

A) Morocco
B) Spain
C) Portugal
D) Gibraltar

Question 24

Martin Luther's initial intention, when he complained of corruption in the Catholic Church, was to

A) rebel against the church.
B) reform the church.
C) create a new church.
D) have the pope replaced.

Question 25

In 1579, with the hope of uniting Europe into a single Christian empire, Charles V succeeded to the throne of

A) the Habsburg empire.
B) France.
C) the Ottoman empire.
D) Germany.

Question 26

In France's political system, the third estate represented the

A) Estates-General.
B) high Catholic clergy.
C) nobility.
D) bourgeoisie.

Question 27

King Henry VIII repudiated papal authority

A) as part of a heartfelt conversion to Protestantism.
B) in order to remain a neutral observer between the French and the Habsburgs.
C) in order to seize the extensive lands held by the Church of England.
D) in a dispute with the pope over his marital affairs.

Question 28

What was the largest African empire of the sixteenth century?

A) Niger
B) Mali
C) Songhay
D) Sudan

Question 29

Which of the following would NOT be found in the Songhay army?

A) slave warriors
B) muskets
C) a massive cavalry
D) armored bowmen

Question 30

What was the most important instrument of centralizing power in Afroeurasia in the sixteenth century?

A) the Protestant Reformation and the loss of power in Rome
B) the introduction of mounted cavalry
C) firearms
D) a layered bureaucracy not beholden to landed nobles

Question 31

To overcome the slow loading times of muskets, military leaders sped up firing rates by

A) using multiple ranks of infantrymen.
B) issuing infantrymen more ammunition.
C) constantly urging infantrymen to load and fire faster.
D) having infantrymen "double load" their muskets.

Question 32

Who pioneered the manufacture and use of muskets with strong steel barrels?

A) the French
B) the Ottoman Turks
C) Indian metal smiths
D) China's Ming dynasty

Question 33

What state successfully implemented radical gun control after it put down a serious revolt led by musket-wielding Christians?

A) Morocco
B) the Ottomans
C) Egypt
D) Japan

Question 34

Which emperor spent so much on his wars that he had to declare bankruptcy four different times?

A) Philip II
B) Charles I
C) Ferdinand II
D) Maximilian I

Question 35

Why did mid-sized states generally have more success at direct rule than giant ones?

A) Smaller populations were intrinsically easier to rule.
B) An enormous bureaucracy would be needed for a giant state.
C) It was easier to communicate within a smaller state.
D) Giant states tended to be multi-ethnic.

Question 36

How did the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs begin?

A) with an assassination of a noble
B) as a tax revolt
C) with the state execution of a popular lay leader
D) as a protest to conscripted military service

Question 37

It is estimated that currently, languages go extinct at the rate of

A) one every two weeks.
B) two per year.
C) one per year.
D) one per decade.

Question 38

Which of the following faiths did NOT reach out to converts as missionaries moved out along the global communications networks around 1500?

A) Islam
B) Christianity
C) Buddhism
D) Hinduism

Question 39

What impact did Roman Catholic missionaries have on popular beliefs in China?

A) little
B) some
C) significant
D) revolutionary

Question 40

What major faith in the early modern era spread to more people than any other?

A) Islam
B) Christianity
C) Buddhism
D) Hinduism

Question 41

In the 1300s, the reputation of the Christian clergy plummeted. Many Christians faulted the church for failing to

A) drive corruption out of its highest levels.
B) prevent the Black Death.
C) impeach the corrupt pope who had ruled unilaterally for years.
D) keep Islam from spreading.

Question 42

Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses were mainly directed against the

A) rampant misuse of tithed income by local priests.
B) pope's use of excommunication as a political tool.
C) vow of poverty.
D) sale of indulgences.

Question 43

Which of the following was NOT a Protestant teaching or doctrine?

A) Divine truth can be sought through scripture alone.
B) Good acts are not required for one to be saved.
C) The clergy must be celibate.
D) Marriage helps ministers avoid sexual sin.

Question 44

Catholic Spain convened special courts known as the ________ to rid the country of all religious deviants.

A) Holy Inquisition
B) Heretic Trials
C) Catholic Reform Council
D) Purity Tribunal

Question 45

The Catholic Reformation, sometimes called the ________, approved the creation of several new religious orders.

A) Vatican II
B) Crusades
C) Anti-Lutherans
D) Counter Reformation

Question 46

The meaning of vernacular is

A) a European language other than Latin.
B) a commonly spoken language.
C) a language that is becoming extinct.
D) a subset of languages that all share Greek as its parent.

Question 47

Which of the following is NOT a Celtic language?

A) Irish
B) Welsh
C) English
D) Cornish

Question 48

What Turkic language has evolved into modern Turkish?

A) Urdu
B) Arabic
C) Oghuz
D) Topkapi

Question 49

What development gradually standardized vocabularies and grammars?

A) more people learning to read the vernaculars
B) Martin Luther's flood of religious pamphlets
C) the mechanical printing press
D) novels and poetry in Spanish, Dutch, and English

Question 50

Humanism's intellectual mission was to

A) try to revive extinct languages.
B) criticize the Bible.
C) publish religious works in the vernacular.
D) recover the lost knowledge of the ancient Romans and Greeks.

Question 51

Explain why the leadership abilities of the Ming emperor had little effect on how well the country was run.

Question 52

Discuss how the Tokugawa of Japan ruled. How did ordinary men and women feel about the government?

Question 53

Recount the reign of Akbar the Great. How was his state organized? Did this organization make its administrators more or less loyal to the state?

Question 54

Identify Akbar's three strong-willed successors.

Question 55

Discuss some of the political and economic changes that came with the adoption of gunpowder technology.

Question 56

Discuss the Counter or Catholic Reformation. Was the Catholic Church acknowledging its shortcomings by reforming itself? Explain.

Question 57

Explain the political and social process whereby a regional language of a rising monarchy becomes more commonly used in the provinces.