Sarah ChalfieToday we looked at the spreading of the three universal religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We focused on the four different ways that they spread throughout the old world, through trade, missionaries, war, and support from elites/rulers. Each religion did better with certain forms of expansion than others. We also looked at the trickle down effect that was occurring in societies that these religions from the rulers to the rest of society, and how it was advantageous for societies to embrace these new religions. We also discussed what role monasticism played in society, as a result of these new faiths. Monasticism was more a feature of Christianity and Buddhism that Islam, an in those societies they functioned as educational centers with the ability to provide for the local people. Lastly, we looked at the impact that these religions had on the societies they penetrated, and how generally, the traditional religions of these regions were swallowed up by these universal ones.
By Adam Horowitz.Today in class we discussed many different empires and kingdoms. We started off focusing on the four main regions of the world in terms of empires: China, Rome, India, and Persia. We began looking around 200 A.D., with the Han, Mauryan, Parthian and Roman empires in these places. We saw how nomads affected almost all of the empires and how China’s circular geography, its economic independence and openness to foreigners made them less vulnerable to nomads. We looked forward to around 500 A.D. where China was separated into many kingdoms, Rome was separated in the poorer Western Rome and the Byzantine Empire, India was fragmented and Persia was united under the Sassinians. We looked onward as Arabs took over the Sassinian Empire and Germanic kingdoms were permanently set up in Western Rome while the Byzantine continued Roman tradition with things like similar law codes. Next we discussed the development of new small kingdoms all over the world in places like Japan and Tibet as large empires like the Han were temporarily weakened, allowing these kingdoms to exist and sometimes even expand.
