Michael Baizerman Author

 I had been silent for a long time not because I had nothing to say; since I was busy writing a new chapter of my third book. The chapter is called The Quest for the River of Gold; it comprises about 11 K words and consists of three parts:  a.     The Near Shore: Christian Mercenaries, Merchants, and Monks in the Maghrib b: Under the Desert Sun--The Vagaries of the Trans-Saharan Trade c: The Gold of Wangara The last part,  Reappraisal, sums up the chapter .  The first part shows that despite religious antagonism between Christianity and Islam, which took shape in the long-term wars of the Reconquista, international trade between the northern and southern shore of the Mediterranean went on and multiple Latin merchants found themselves lodging in the funduks  in Muslim port cities. Besides, Berber rulers would enlist European mercenaries to fight their wars on African soil. These warriors and their families resided in special quarters in Muslim citi...

  Hi guys, Image: An improvised flea market at Sahel Courtesy:   Photo:  PGskot  |  CC BY-SA 4.0 I began processing the data I have collected about the Wangara traders. This association was a merchant network that linked the gold producers of West Africa with the entrepots in the Sahel. Gold for the salt exchange was the most obvious but not the only one avenue of this counteraction.  The material is controversial and I am unsure what will the outcome be. For example, what weight I would give for the empires of Western Sudan: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. There is much data but since I am a novice in African history, it is not easy to decide where I should stop. Besides, my main interest in this project seems to be maritime discoveries, so how much room should be provided for economic and human interest history?   The first three chapters of my projects are available on my page at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/41214506/How_Wide_Spans_the_Oce...

I have just published another chapter from my third book. This extract is devoted to the sailing uncharted waters of the Atlantic along the Moroccan water front. The merchants dropped in new ports where they heard the tall tales about the Rio del Oro (The River of Gold). This led to a tragic treasure hunt. Also, European gamblers believed that the realm of Prester John, the black Christian Emperor, lay in the headwaters of that waterway.  Read my article https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/113133 I would appreciate any comments. Meanwhile, I will return to the Mongol invasion of Hungary, the theme of my second (ongoing) book. Image 1: The Catalan Atlas pays tribute to Jaume Ferrer, a Majorcan captain, who is crossing the uncharted waters of the Atlantic in an attempt to discover the River of Gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaume_Ferrer#/media/File:Jacme_ferrer.jpg