ABSTRACT
This essay gives an overview of history of religious expansion in our period, before turning to an investigation of the relevant scholarship. Elaborating on the excellent study of expansion models in Jason Neelis’ monograph on the ancient transmission of Buddhism, we will look at some common historiographical issues, mostly in Anglophone scholarship, before examining a variety of ways historians have explained religious transmission. By taking this broad panoramic approach, we hope this will prove useful to historians of each of these transmissions, as well as to new students of the expansion of religion.
