Neoclassicism a late-eighteenth-century artistic movement that emerged in France. It sought to recapture the dignity and simplicity of the Classical style of ancient Greece and Rome.
Neolithic Revolution the shift from hunting animals and gathering plants for sustenance to producing food by sytematic agriculture that occurred gradually between 10,000 and 4000 B.C.E. (the Neolithic or “New Stone” Age).
Neoplatonism a revival of Platonic philosophy in the third century C.E., associated with Plotinus; a similar revival in the Italian Renaissance, associated with Marsilio Ficino, who attempted to synthesize Christianity and Platonism.
nepotism the appointment of family members to important political positions; derived from the regular appointment of nephews (Latin, nepos) by Renaissance popes.
New Economic Policy a modified version of the old capitalist system introduced in the Soviet Union by Lenin in 1921 to revive the economy after the ravages of the civil war and war communism.
new imperialism the revival of imperialism after 1880 in which European nations established colonies throughout much of Asia and Africa.
new monarchies the governments of France, England, and Spain at the end of the fifteenth century, whose rulers succeeded in reestablishing or extending centralized royal authority, suppressing the nobility, controlling the church, and insisting on the loyalty of all peoples living in their territories.
nobiles “nobles.” The small group of families from both patrician and plebeian origins who produced most of the men who were elected to office in the late Roman Republic.
nominalist a member of a school of thought in medieval Europe that, following Aristotle, held that only individual objects are real and that universals are only names created by humans.
nuclear family a family group consisting only of a father, a mother, and one or more children.
nuns women who withdrew from the world and joined a religious community; the female equivalent of monks.
old order (old regime) the political and social system of France in the eighteenth century before the Revolution.
oligarchy rule by a few.
optimates “best men.” Aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who generally came from senatorial families and wished to retain their oligarchical privileges.
orders see estates.
organic evolution Darwin’s principle that all plants and animals have evolved over a long period of time from earlier and simpler forms of life.
Paleolithic Age the period of human history when humans used simple stone tools (c. 2,500,000–10,000 B.C.E.).
pantheism a doctrine that equates God with the universe and all that is in it.
panzer division in the German army under Hitler, a strike force of about three hundred tanks and accompanying forces and supplies.
papal curia the administrative staffof the Catholic Church, composed of cardinals who assist the pope in running the church.
parlements provincial law courts in France.
pasteurization a process developed by Louis Pasteur for heating a product to destroy the microorganisms that might cause spoilage.
paterfamilias the dominant male in a Roman family whose powers over his wife and children were theoretically unlimited, though they were sometimes circumvented in practice.
patriarchal family a family in which the husband dominates his wife and children.
patriarchy a society in which the father is supreme in the clan or family; more generally, a society dominated by men.
patricians great landowners who became the ruling class in the Roman Republic.
patronage the practice of awarding titles and making appointments to government and other positions to gain political support.
Pax Romana “Roman peace.” A term used to refer to the stability and prosperity that Roman rule brought to the Mediterranean world and much of western Europe during the first and second centuries C.E.
Pentateuch the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
perestroika “restructuring.” A term applied to Mikhail Gorbachev’s economic, political, and social reforms in the Soviet Union.
perioikoi in ancient Sparta, free inhabitants but not citizens who were required to pay taxes and perform military service.
permissive society a term applied to Western society after World War II to reflect the new sexual freedom and the emergence of a drug culture.
Petrine supremacy the doctrine that the bishop of Rome (the pope), as the successor of Saint Peter (traditionally considered the first bishop of Rome), should hold a preeminent position in the church.
phalanstery a self-sustaining cooperative community, as advocated by Charles Fourier in the early nineteenth century.
phalanx a rectangular formation of tightly massed infantry soldiers.
philosophes intellectuals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment who believed in applying a spirit of rational criticism to all things, including religion and politics, and who focused on improving and enjoying this world, rather than on the afterlife.
Pietism a movement that arose in Germany in the seventeenth century whose goal was to foster a personal experience of God as the focus of true religious experience.
pig iron a type of iron produced by smelting iron ore with coke; of lower quality than wrought iron.
plebeians the class of Roman citizens that included nonpatrician landowners, craftspeople, merchants, and small farmers in the Roman Republic. Their struggle for equal rights with the patricians dominated much of the Republic’s history.
plebiscita laws passed by the council of the plebs.
pluralism the practice of holding several church offices simultaneously; a problem of the late medieval church.
plutocrats members of the wealthy elite.
pogroms organized massacres of Jews.
polis an ancient Greek city-state encompassing both an urban area and its surrounding countryside; a small but autonomous political unit where all major political and social activities were carried out centrally.
political democracy a form of government characterized by universal suffrage and mass political parties.
politiques a group who emerged during the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, placed politics above religion, and believed that no religious truth was worth the ravages of civil war.
polytheism belief in or worship of more than one god.
Pop Art an artistic movement of the 1950s and 1960s in which artists took images of popular culture and transformed them into works of fine art. Andy Warhol’s painting of Campbell’s soup cans is one example.
popular culture as opposed to high culture, the unofficial written and unwritten culture of the masses, much of which was traditionally passed down orally and centered on public and group activities such as festivals. In the modern age, the term refers to the entertainment, recreation, and pleasures that people purchase as part of the mass consumer society.
populares “favoring the people.” Aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who tended to use the people’s assemblies in an effort to break the stranglehold of the nobiles on political offices.
popular sovereignty the doctrine that government is created by and subject to the will of the people, who are the source of all political power.
populism a political philosophy or movement that supports the rights and power of ordinary people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
portolani charts of landmasses and coastlines made by navigators and mathematicians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Post-Impressionism an artistic movement that began in France in the 1880s. Post-Impressionists sought to use color and line to express inner feelings and produce a personal statement of reality.
Postmodernism a term used to cover a variety of artistic and intellectual styles and ways of thinking prominent since the 1970s.
praetor a Roman executive official responsible for the administrati
on of the law.
praetorian guard the military unit that served as the personal bodyguard of the Roman emperors.
predestination the belief, associated with Calvinism, that God, as a consequence of his foreknowledge of all events, has predetermined those who will be saved (the elect) and those who will be damned.
prefect during the reign of Napoleon, an official appointed by the central government to oversee all aspects of a local government.
price revolution the dramatic rise in prices (inflation) that occurred throughout Europe in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
primogeniture an inheritance practice in which the eldest son receives all or the largest share of the parents’ estate.
principate the form of government established by Augustus for the Roman Empire; it continued the constitutional forms of the Republic and consisted of the princeps (“first citizen”) and the senate, although the princeps was clearly the dominant partner.
procurator the head of the Holy Synod, the chief decision-making body for the Russian Orthodox Church.
proletariat the industrial working class. In Marxism, the class that will ultimately overthrow the bourgeoisie.
propaganda a program of distorted information put out by an organization or government to spread its policy, cause, or doctrine.
psychoanalysis a method developed by Sigmund Freud to resolve a patient’s psychic conflict.
purgatory defined by the Catholic Church as the place where souls went after death to be purged of punishment for sins committed in life.
Puritans English Protestants inspired by Calvinist theology who wished to remove all traces of Catholicism from the Church of England.
quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music; four of the seven liberal arts (the others made up the trivium) that formed the basis of medieval and early modern education.
quaestors Roman officials responsible for the administration of financial affairs.
querelles des femmes “arguments about women.” A centuries-old debate about the nature of women that continued during the scientific Revolution as those who argued for the inferiority of women found additional support in the new anatomy and medicine.
rapprochement the rebuilding of harmonious relations between nations.
rationalism a system of thought based on the belief that human reason and experience are the chief sources of knowledge.
Realism a nineteenth-century school of painting that emphasized the everyday life of ordinary people, depicted with photographic accuracy.
realist a subscriber to the medieval European school of thought that held, following Plato, that the individual objects we perceive are not real but merely manifestations of universal ideas existing in the mind of God.
Realpolitik “politics of reality.” Politics based on practical concerns rather than theory or ethics.
reason of state the principle that a nation should act on the basis of its long-term interests and not merely to further the dynastic interests of its ruling family.
Reconquista in Spain, the reconquest of Muslim lands by Christian rulers and their armies.
relativity theory Einstein’s theory that, among other things, (1) space and time are not absolute but are relative to the observer and interwoven into a four-dimensional space-time continuum and (2) matter is a form of energy (E = mc2).
relics the bones of Christian saints or objects intimately associated with saints that were considered worthy of veneration.
Renaissance the “rebirth” of Classical culture that occurred in Italy between c. 1350 and c. 1550; also, the earlier revivals of Classical culture that occurred under Charlemagne and in the twelfth century.
rentier a person who lives on income from property and is not personally involved in its operation.
reparations payments made by a defeated nation after a war to compensate another nation for damage sustained as a result of the war; required from Germany after World War I.
revisionism a socialist doctrine that rejected Marx’s emphasis on class struggle and revolution and argued instead that workers should work through political parties to bring about gradual change.
revolution a fundamental change in the political and social organization of a state.
revolutionary socialism a socialist doctrine that violent action was the only way to achieve the goals of socialism.
rhetoric the art of persuasive speaking; in the Middle Ages, one of the seven liberal arts.
risorgimento a movement in Italy in the nineteenth century aimed at the creation of a united Italian republic.
Rococo an eighteenth-century artistic movement that emphasized grace, gentility, lightness, and charm.
Romanesque a term used to describe the art and especially architecture of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Romanization the process by which Roman culture and institutions were spread to the provinces; often accomplished through the Roman army as colonies of veterans were established wherever the legions were stationed throughout the empire.
Romanticism a nineteenth-century intellectual and artistic movement that rejected the emphasis on reason of the Enlightenment. Instead, Romantics stressed the importance of intuition, feeling, emotion, and imagination as sources of knowing.
sacraments rites considered imperative for a Christian’s salvation. By the thirteenth century, these consisted of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper, baptism, marriage, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and confirmation of children; Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century generally recognized only two—baptism and communion (the Lord’s Supper).
salons gatherings of philosophes and other notables to discuss the ideas of the Enlightenment; so called from the elegant drawing rooms (salons) where they met.
sans-culottes “without breeches.” The common people, who did not wear the fine clothes of the upper classes and played an important role in the radical phase of the French Revolution.
satrap a governor with both civil and military duties in the ancient Persian Empire, which was divided into satrapies, or provinces, each administered by a satrap.
scholasticism the philosophical and theological system of the medieval schools, which emphasized rigorous analysis of contradictory authorities; often used to try to reconcile faith and reason.
scientific method a method of seeking knowledge through inductive principles, using experiments and observations to develop generalizations.
Scientific Revolution the transition from the medieval world-view to a largely secular, rational, and materialistic perspective that began in the seventeenth century and was popularized in the eighteenth.
scriptoria writing rooms for the copying of manuscripts in medieval monasteries.
scutage in the fourteenth century, a money payment for military service that replaced the obligation of military service in the lord-vassal relationship.
secularism the process of becoming more concerned with material, worldly, temporal things and less with spiritual and religious things; a characteristic of the Italian Renaissance.
self-determination the doctrine that the people of a given territory or a particular nationality should have the right to determine their own government and political future.
senate the leading council of the Roman Republic; composed of about three hundred men (senators) who served for life and dominated much of the political life of the Republic.
separation of powers a doctrine enunciated by Montesquieu in the eighteenth century that separate executive, legislative, and judicial powers serve to limit and control each other.
serf a peasant who is bound to the land and obliged to provide labor services and pay various rents and fees to the lord; considered unfree but not a slave because serfs could not be bought and sold.
skepticism a doubtful or questioning attitude, especially about religion.
social Darwinism the application of Darwin’s principle of organic evolution to the social order; led to the belief th
at progress comes from the struggle for survival as the fittest advance and the weak decline.
socialism an ideology that calls for collective or government ownership of the means of production and the distribution of goods.
socialized medicine health services for all citizens provided by government assistance.
social security government programs that provide social welfare measures such as old-age pensions and sickness, accident, and disability insurance.
Socratic method a form of teaching that uses a question-and-answer format to enable students to reach conclusions by using their own reasoning.
Sophists wandering scholars and professional teachers in ancient Greece who stressed the importance of rhetoric and tended toward skepticism and relativism.
soviets councils of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies formed throughout Russia in 1917 that played an important role in the Bolshevik Revolution.
sphere of influence a territory or region over which an outside nation exercises political or economic influence.
squadristi in Italy in the 1920s, bands of armed Fascists used to create disorder by attacking Socialist offices and newspapers.
stagflation a combination of high inflation and high unemployment that was prevalent in the United States and elsewhere from 1973 to the mid-1980s.
Stalinization the adoption by Eastern European Communist countries of features of the economic, political, and military policies implemented by Stalin in the Soviet Union.
Stoicism a philosophy founded by Zeno in the fourth century B.C.E. that taught that happiness could be obtained by accepting one’s lot and living in harmony with the will of God, thereby achieving inner peace.
subinfeudation the practice whereby a lord’s greatest vassals subdivided their ?efs and had vassals of their own, who in turn subdivided their ?efs, and so on down to simple knights, whose fiefs were too small to subdivide.
suffrage the right to vote.
suffragists advocates of extending the right to vote to women.
sultan “holder of power.” A title taken by Turkish leaders who took command of the Abbasid Empire in 1055.
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