Ideas travel across mountains and seas

At a moment when ideology and religion once again divide the world, this season recalls histories of encounter and exchange. Beginning in India, it follows Buddhism across East Asia; it traces Christianity’s inheritance from Asian civilizations and expansion from Rome across the seas; and it follows Islam from Arabia into Persia, Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

More than twenty scholars explain how Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam spread, adapted, and transformed the societies they entered. Whether or not we are believers, we live in a world these traditions helped create.