Comparison in the AP Histories

📘College Board Description

In short a student will need to be able to do the following: 

• Describe similarities and/or differences between different historical developments or processes.
• Explain relevant similarities and/or differences between specific historical developments and processes.
• Explain the relative historical significance of similarities and/or differences between different historical developments or processes.
  • This one basically means, you as a student will need to make a judgment about the importance of certain developments or processes. Compare the importance of events.

🔎Organizing Question

How are places, events, and developments both similar and different? And why are these both similar and different?

Comparison

Think about an apple and an orange. You can probably think of many differences. Color, taste, size, shape and smell. Both are round, but people generally eat the skin of apples whereas most people do not eat the skin of oranges. 

Comparison enables one to explore the context of various parts of the world as it was and is. This contextualization is an important part of comparing or else looking at two parts of the world would be a fruitless exercise as we would have no idea why these things are different. From politics and culture to economics and technology, the world continues to be a very diverse place, and being able to effectively contextualize and compare parts of it is critical.  

Back to the fruit, however, what about the similarities? Initially Apples and Oranges don’t seem so similar, however look close. They are both fruit, and they are both roughly circular, they are both considered healthy to eat. And this is perhaps the tougher part of comparison, finding the underlying similarities between two places that seem obviously different.   

The following are brief summaries of comparison per AP World History’s time periods. As you read, consider the context of each situation and practice coming up with additional ways to compare these topics.  

🎥Watch: WHAP - Introduction to Historical Reasoning

Unit 1 Comparisons 

Short but sweet: Unit 1 focuses on the variety of political states so the college board cites political comparison among the types of states seen during this time.

Below is a breakdown of the major government types witnessed in Unit 1. 

When comparing these types of governments, ask yourself about why these types of governments exist? What role does Geography play? What role does Culture play? What role does Trade or Economics play?

For example, the Chinese Imperial State is similar to a Caliphate in that the rulers of both have absolute authority over their people. However, their justification for ruling is different. The Caliphate relied on the authority of Islam, being an Islamic State, whereas China relied on a Confucian Hierarchy and the Mandate of Heaven. 

Unit 2 Comparisons 

Short but sweet: Unit 2 focuses on trade networks and networks of exchange so the comparisons focus on the new v. old networks, and within existing trade networks.

Which trade routes expanded during this time? Well the Silk Road did not so much expand, but thanks to the Mongols it was used more, meaning the use of it intensified. The Trans-Saharan Route was new so that was a trade route expansion.

Notice: all the trade routes trade predominantly Luxury Goods.💎 This is a feature of all trade routes until modern times. The risk of trade meant merchants needed high value products to make the journey worth it. 

Unit 3/4 Comparisons

Short but sweet: Unit 3 and 4 focus on the growth of empires both across the Atlantic in the Americas and in Afro-Eurasia, so the major comparison would be in the type or style of government. 

A major difference between these two types of empires is that the empires on the left were predominantly land based, meaning most of their power and wealth came from the land, rich agriculture, and profitable trade routes. Those on the right are predominantly maritime based empires, meaning that their power and wealth come from trade overseas, colonies overseas, or controlling overseas trade routes.   

Administrative Systems

How governments maintain legitimacy varies across empires varies, but the chart above illustrates two general ways that empires claimed the right to rule. Military elites refer to a system of warriors who are loyal to the ruler or the state which helps them maintain power. On the other hand some states relied more on religious justification for their power, claiming direct connection to the divine as the right to rule. It should be understood, these two often mixed.  

Social Hierarchies

Organizing a society is essential to maintaining stability within an Empire. A hierarchy determined one's job, what legal rights they had and proximity to power. These hierarchies can be based on physical characteristics, probably the most famous being the Casta System, which was based on perceptions of blood purity. Or they can be based on religion as in many of the Islamic empires; the Millet System gave each religion its own political zone. Although the Islamic zones were above the others, this did provide some stability as each zone was free to practice their own religion.   

Empire Type (Maritime Empires)

For those empires that expanded overseas, there were two major types that corresponded more to the situation of the colonized regions. During this time, Europeans stuck to themselves in trading posts and did not assert authority over land, but did overseas known as Trading Post Empires. Colonial Empires refers to places where Europeans conquered land and sometimes settled their own populations there. Trading Post Empires often confronted established and long standing empires or populations they could not eliminate or geography that was unfavorable to conquest. The opposite was true for Colonial Empires.

Unit 5 Comparisons 

Short but sweet: Unit 5 focuses on Industrialization. The major comparisons are on nations with industrialization and those nations which de-industrialized in response to expanding European economic power.  

Industrialization Outside of Europe

 

Industrial Decline in Response to European Industrialization

Unit 6 Comparisons 

Short but sweet: Unit 6 is about the expansion of the European and American Empires and a comparison in this unit could focus on the types of empires created during this time, much like Unit 3/4.  

State Expansion in the Age of Empire

The Age of Imperialism, which is different from the Age of Colonialism (Unit 3/4) in the expansion of European States, involved European States asserting both political and economic control over the planet.

State Expansion varied by region. In those places where the geography and demographics were favorable Settler Colonies were either established directly by governments or by waves of immigration. These states eliminated or displaced the location populations and replaced them with the state’s own population. However, in cases where the populations were too large or state control was not as strong, direct state expansion simply incorporated a conquered region into the state itself, the traditional definition of Imperialism. During Unit 3/4 several major private companies built large colonial empires. However, by Unit 6 these companies were bankrupt or their states had grown strong enough to assume control, or in the case of the Congo, a major scandal led to the incorporation of these territories into their respective empires.      

Unit 7 Comparisons 

Short but sweet: Unit 7 Focuses on global warfare, specifically World War I and World War II, so any comparison will focus on global war or the time in between the conflicts 

Government Responses to the Great Depression

Five Year Plans in the Soviet Union

Though cut off from most international trade, the Soviet Union undertook a project of rapid internal industrialization that was controlled and directed by the state to build up arms and manufacturing industries🏭.  The First Five Year Plan (1928-1932, I know, not five years) resulted in the almost full industrialization of the USSR faster than any nation had industrialized to this time in history. 

Government Conduct of World War II

Unit 8 Comparisons

Short but sweet: Unit 8 Focuses on the World from 1945-1980s, involving mainly the Cold War and the major impacts of decolonization around the World. Comparisons in this unit officially focus on decolonization methods and military action in the Cold War.

Gaining Allies during the Cold War

The Cold War is defined as a major political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted from the End of WWII to 1989 (1945-1989). During this time both sides attempted to gain allies and influence nations to join their respective ideologies. Military alliances and military aid were a major factor. Though the major military alliances (Warsaw Pact v. NATO) never went to war, many small conflicts were fought between and within nations, proxy wars where each side was backed by either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.. Though it should be noted, not all of these conflicts were specifically fought by communists v. anti-communists. For example, the Arab-Israeli Wars were not about communism, but each side was largely backed by one super power.

Methods of Obtaining Independence

The Cold War was also the Age of Decolonization, the dismantling of the major colonial empires from Unit 3, 4, and 6. Depending on the situation, this may have been violent or peaceful. If the colonial power in question had a large military, such as France or a strong ideological attachment to their colonies, such as Portugal, then the conflict was more likely to involve an armed struggle💪. 

This is another example of the proxy conflicts mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union largely encouraged decolonization whereas the U.S. wanted to keep their allies powerful, which meant quietly downplaying decolonization in the 1950s-1970s. Angola is an excellent example, where several groups (backed by either the U.S. or Soviet Union) fought Portugal, and each other, until a revolution in Portugal ended their empire.

However, in other cases, decolonization could be (relatively) peaceful. If the colonial power was too exhausted by World War II or if the colony had strong pre-existing independence movements. India is an excellent example. India had a long standing politically organized independence movement. The Indian National Congress and Muslim League and Great Britain was largely exhausted from WWII, and so India (and Pakistan) achieved independence without armed struggle against the colonizer.      

Unit 9 Comparisons

Short but Sweet: Officially there is no required example of comparison for Unit 9 as it focuses on the changes and continuity of the 20th century. However, here is one example of topics that can be compared. 

Facts to note about this is that the eliminated diseases often were eradicated or reduced because of vaccines or increased access to medical care or better living conditions in general such as clean water or proper sanitation. 

Facts to note about the diseases on the rise are that these are connected to an increasingly interconnected world. 

For example, Ebola and various Animal Flus were previously confined to their origin points, and the other diseases such as Alzheimers are the product of humans living longer than before, which leads to problems with the function of organs. 

On a more contemporary note, the worldwide spread of Covid-19 in the year 2020, represents both of these trends perfectly. Comparing the nature of diseases in the 21th century would be one way to practice comparison in Unit 9.