Protestant Reformation
a religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches
Catholic Counter-Reformation
The Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation in which it tried to reform itself.
Taki Onqoy
"dancing sickness" a religious revival movement in central Peru in the 1560's whose members preached the imminent destruction of Christianity and of the Europeans in favor of a renewed Andean golden age.
Jesuits in China
missionaries from Europe that tried to convert the Chinese to Roman Catholicism and took advantage of China's interest in technology to convert them
Wahhabi Islam
Major Islamic movement led by the Muslim theologian Abd al Wahhab (1703-1792) that advocated an austere lifestyle and strict adherence to the sharia or Islamic law
Wang Yangmin
Prominent Chinese philosopher (1472-1529) who argued that it was possible to achieve a virtuous life by introspection without the extensive education of traditional Confuciansim
kaozheng
A notion of "researched based evidence" that occurred in China as a foil to Neo-Confucian orthodoxy
Mirabai
One of India's most beloved bhakti poets (1498-1547), She helped break down the barriers of caste and tradition.
Sikhism
the doctrines of a monotheistic religion founded in northern India in the 16th century by Guru Nanak and combining elements of Hinduism and Islam
Copernicus
Polish astronomer who produced a workable model of the solar system with the sun in the center (1473-1543)
Newton
English mathematician and physicist
European Enlightenment
18th century philosophical movement that proposed individual self-interest
Voltaire
French writer who was the embodiment of 18th century Enlightenment (1694-1778)
Condorcet and the idea of progress
The Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a French philosopher and political scientist who argued that human affairs were moving into an era of near infinite improvability, with slavery, racism, tyranny, and other human trials swept away by the triumph of reason