Chapters 10,11 and 12

So I didn't realize that chapters were switched from last week and this week. Last week I commented a bunch on Islam because I thought we were supposed to read that one and not the Christendom chapter. Reading about Christendom was quite interesting. I never really knew how the split between the western Christianity and Eastern Orthodox happened. The Byzantine Empire is super interesting and I didn't know that it essentially was the Roman Empire 2.0. I had always assumed that the Roman Empire ended when the fall of Rome and that it was no more. How surprised was I to learn that it continued on in a new form for almost a thousand years. It was cool to learn that latin and greek and roman teachings continued on in the east while the west was in total rural disarray. It is also a little silly to me that this split in Christianity occurred when it was the western Christians that put that capital in Constantinople in the first place. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that they were continuing on in the faith's best interest?

Another thing I found fascinating was the expansion of the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan. It is amazing to me that they were able to conquer so much in such a short time and with so few people. They were truly a military machine with every facet of the society contributing in some way to the war effort. I wasn't surprised to learn how short lived the empire was. With your entire economy depending on the conquering and assimilating of new areas, cultures and resources, its not surprising that they would eventually 'burn out' and run out of things to plunder. Still an amazing feat that will probably never be matched again in our history (unless nuclear apocalypse happens then someone will probably try and be lord of the ashes.)