Michael Baizerman Author

  I am still undecided about the plan to write a new book. Meanwhile, things are getting into a groove.  Whether a book in its virtue or a unit in a volume, it will be titled "The Anguish and Thrill of Navigation". I may add a subtitle emphasizing that the topic concerns plying the medieval Mediterranean. I have chosen an epigraph from Eustache Deschamps, a 14th- century French poem. His extract claims that landlubbers, no matter how they are proficient in globetrotting have no idea about the hardships of sea travel.  The prototype of the project is based on a string of articles written in 2014-2015 for my second manuscript, "The Enchanting Encounter with the East". However, these papers were excluded from the final draft since the book deals with land travels rather than seafaring. A new, extended version of these essays makes them awkward to use in my third project, which focuses on the Age of Discovery. On the other hand, my current project is too significant to ...

  This is the resume of my paper, The Swanson of the Mongol Thrust. https://www.academia.edu/41372103/The_Swansong_of_the_Mongol_Thrust The Mongol Empire is on the brink of war with Egypt. Eljigidei, the Mongol military governor in the eastern Mediterranean, is making overtures to Louis IX of France concerning the assistance in the struggle against the mutual enemy. The Muslim warfare on two fronts, against the Mongols and the Latin Christians, leads to the rise of the Mamluks. The Il-khan Hulegu resumes a proposal, suggesting that King Louis would stage a naval blockade of Egypt in support of the ground assault of the Mongols. Meanwhile, the Mongol Empire starts to crumble. The paper ends with an overview of the relations between the Mongols and the Franks. The idea of the combined crusade was buried in the sands of history. This is the final chapter of Unit III of my manuscript, The Enchanting Encounter with the East". The two previous chapters have been recently reviewed and re...