Vocabulary Quiz #2

Question 1

Civilization:

Answer 1

a complex culture in which large numbers of humans share a variety of common elements, including cities; religious, political, military, and social structures; writing; and significant artistic and intellectual activity

Question 2

Civil Rights:

Answer 2

the basic rights of citizens, including equality before the law, freedom of speech and press, and freedom from arbitrary arrest

Question 3

Cold War:

Answer 3

the ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II

Question 4

collective farms:

Answer 4

large farms created in the Soviet Union by Stalin by combining many small holdings into large farms worked by the peasants under government supervision.

Question 5

coloni:

Answer 5

free tenant farmers who worked as sharecroppers on the large estates of the Roman Empire (singular: colonus)

Question 6

Columbian Exchange:

Answer 6

the reciprocal importation and exportation of plants and animals between Europe and the Americas

Question 7

common law:

Answer 7

law common to the entire kingdom of England; imposed by the king’s courts beginning in the twelfth century to replace the customary law used in county and feudal courts that varied from place to place

Question 8

commune:

Answer 8

in medieval Europe, an association of townspeople bound together by a sworn oath for the purpose of obtaining basic liberties from the lord of the territory in which the town was located; also, the self-governing town after receiving its liberties

Question 9

conciliarism:

Answer 9

a movement in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe that held that final authority in spiritual matters resided with a general church council, not the pope. It emerged in response to the Avignon papacy and the Great Schism and was used to justify the summoning of the Council of Constance (1414–1418)

Question 10

condottieri:

Answer 10

leaders of bands of mercenary soldiers in Renaissance Italy who sold their services to the highest bidder

Question 11

confession:

Answer 11

one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. It provided for the forgiveness of one’s sins

Question 12

conquistadors:

Answer 12

“conquerers”. Leaders in the Spanish conquests in the Americas, especially Mexico and Peru, in the sixteenth century

Question 13

conscription:

Answer 13

a military draft

Question 14

conservatism:

Answer 14

an ideology based on tradition and social stability that favoured the maintenance of established institutions, organized religion, and obedience to authority and resisted change, especially abrupt change

Question 15

consuls:

Answer 15

the chief executive officers of the Roman Republic. Two were chosen annually to administer the government and lead the army in battle.

Question 16

consumer society:

Answer 16

a term applied to Western society after World War II as the working classes adopted the consumption patterns of the middle class and payment plans, credit cards, and easy credit made consumer goods such as appliances and automobiles affordable

Question 17

containment:

Answer 17

a policy adopted by the United States in the Cold War. Its goal was to use any means, short of all-out war, to limit Soviet expansion

Question 18

Continental System:

Answer 18

Napoleon’s effort to bar British goods from the Continent in the hope of weakening Britain’s economy and destroying its capacity to wage war

Question 19

cosmopolitan:

Answer 19

the quality of being sophisticated and having wide international experience

Question 20

cottage industry:

Answer 20

a system of textile manufacturing in which spinners and weavers worked at home in their cottages using raw materials supplied to them by capitalist entrepreneurs

Question 21

council of the plebs:

Answer 21

a council only for plebeians. After 287 B.C.E, however, its resolutions were binding on all Romans

Question 22

Crusade:

Answer 22

in the Middle Ages, a military campaign in defence of Christendom.

Question 23

Cubism:

Answer 23

an artistic style developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially by Pablo Picasso, that used geometric designs to re-create reality in the viewer’s mind

Question 24

cultural relativism:

Answer 24

the belief that no culture is superior to another because culture is a matter of custom, not reason, and derives its meaning from the group holding it

Question 25

cuneiform:

Answer 25

‘wedge-shaped”. A system of writing developed by the Sumerians that consisted of wedge-shaped impressions made by a reed stylus on clay tablets

Question 26

curiales:

Answer 26

city councillors in Roman cities who played an important role in governing the vast Roman Empire

Question 27

Dadaism:

Answer 27

an artistic movement in the 1920s and the 1930s begun by artist who were revolted by the senseless slaughter of World War I and used their “anti-art” to express contempt for the Western tradition

Question 28

de-Christianization:

Answer 28

a policy, adopted in the radical phase of the French Revolution, aimed at creating a secular society by eliminating Christian forms and institutions from French society

Question 29

decolonization:

Answer 29

the process of becoming free of colonial status and achieving statehood. It occurred in most of the world’s colonies between 1947 and 1962.

Question 30

deconstruction (poststructuralism):

Answer 30

a system of thought, formulated by Jacques Derrida, that holds that culture is created in a variety of ways, according to the manner in which people create their own meaning. Hence, there is no fixed truth or universal meaning

Question 31

deism:

Answer 31

belief in God as the creator of the universe who, after setting it in motion, ceased to have any direct involvement in it and allowed it to run according to its own natural laws

Question 32

demesne:

Answer 32

the part of a manor retained under the direct control of the lord and worked by the serfs as part of their labour services

Question 33

denazification:

Answer 33

after World War II, the Allied policy of rooting out any traces of Nazism in German society by bringing prominent Nazis to trial for war crimes and purging any known Nazis from political office

Question 34

depression:

Answer 34

a very severe, protracted economic downturn with high levels of unemployment

Question 35

de-Stalinization:

Answer 35

the policy of denouncing and undoing the most repressive aspects of Stalin’s regime; begun by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956

Question 36

détente:

Answer 36

the relaxation of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States that occurred in the 1970s

Question 37

developed nations:

Answer 37

a term used to refer to rich nations, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, that have well-organized industrial and agricultural systems, advanced technologies, and effective educational systems

Question 38

developing nations:

Answer 38

a term used to refer to poor nations, mainly in the Souther Hemisphere, that are primarily farming nations with little technology and serious population problems

Question 39

dialectic:

Answer 39

logic, one of the seven liberal arts that made up the medieval curriculum. In Marxist thought, the process by which all change occurs through the clash of antagonistic elements

Question 40

Diaspora:

Answer 40

the scattering of Jews throughout the ancient world after the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century B.C.E.

Question 41

dictator:

Answer 41

in the Roman Republic, an official granted unlimited power to run the state for a short period of time, usually six months, during an emergency

Question 42

diocese:

Answer 42

the area under the jurisdiction of a Christian bishop; based originally of Roman administrative districts

Question 43

divination:

Answer 43

the practice of seeking to foretell future events by interpreting divine signs, which could appear in various forms, such as in entrails of animals, in patterns in smoke, or in dreams

Question 44

divine-right monarchy:

Answer 44

a monarchy based on the belief that monarchs receive their power directly from God and are responsible to no one except God

Question 45

domino theory:

Answer 45

the belief that if the Communists succeeded in Vietnam, other countries in Southeast and East Asia would also fall (like dominoes) to communism; cited as justification for the U.S. intervention in Vietnam

Question 46

dualism:

Answer 46

the belief that the universe is dominated by two opposing forces, one good and the other evil

Question 47

dynastic state:

Answer 47

a state in which the maintenance and expansion of the interests of the ruling family is the primary consideration