by Philip Schmiege
Today in class, we discussed the different areas of the world and how they overcame, or didn’t overcome isolation. We first looked at the map and went through each of the places, Mesoamerica, North America, Greenland, Khmer Kingdom, Chola Kingodm, Ethiopia, Japan, and Europe, and said wheither or not they overcame their isolation by expanding and interacting a lot with ohter cutures. Genreally it turned out that the civilization in the Americas did not over come isolation while the civilizations in Asia and Africa and Europe did. We also talked about the spread of Hinduism, and Buddhism, the effects of urbaniztion, and the effects of these new links between different peoples; one such effect was specialization.
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.
