The Expansion of Christianity (1500-1800)

Abstract BY the year 1800, Christianity girdled the globe from China to Peru. Yet three hundred years earlier, it had been the religion of Europe alone, hemmed in on the east by militant Islam, to the south by the desert, to the north by barren tundra, and to the west by the great ocean. Islam ruled...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: McManners, John
Format: Book Part
Language:English
Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 1983
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192852915.003.0010
https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/58310623/isbn-9780192852915-book-part-10.pdf
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Summary:Abstract BY the year 1800, Christianity girdled the globe from China to Peru. Yet three hundred years earlier, it had been the religion of Europe alone, hemmed in on the east by militant Islam, to the south by the desert, to the north by barren tundra, and to the west by the great ocean. Islam ruled in the land where Christ had been born and crucified. It had swept away the Christian communities of the North African coast, and its pressures were driving the Monophysite Copes of Egypt to convert to the Prophet; the sister Coptic church in Ethiopia survived only because of its wild remoteness in the mountains. In the Sudan, where Christianity had once been dominant, the faith of the Qur'an now prevailed.