Michael Baizerman Author

I am doing an additional research about the Mongol assault on Central Europe in 1241-42. I would like to show what intrigue was hiding behind the decision to launch the western campaign and understand the interplay between the main participants. I also want to give intelligible reasons for the "Tartar" withdrawal from the arena. It is time to reveal the background of the "barbarians", i.e. pastoral nomads of the Eurasian steppes, whose life style differed so much from that of the sedentary civilizations both in the East and the West. There's still much work to do as I have to read a lot of monographs and articles about the medieval military history to explain the clash between the Latin Christendom and the Mongols. No part of this article has been published yet. It will be followed by three other passages which tell the story of the contacts between the European powers and the Mongols in the aftermath of this assault. I recommend reading a book penned by...

The Summer is Over (2) I have completed the third leg of the course "The Archeology of Portus". We discussed the events of the end of the 2nd century CE when Portus was enlarged by building spacious warehouses. We spoke about the discovery of a stunning sculptured head, probably that of a fisherman which belonged to a statue located in a gardern setting. We made acquantaince with new scientific methods of geophysics and geological coring.  I have reviewed the beginning of the ChinaX-5 course. We made a comparison between the nomadic and cedentary lifestyles, noticed the transformation of Mongols from a marginal tribe into a warring nation, and paid attention that the Mongol rule in China was slightly different than in other parts of the world empire. Since this is my first course in a new format, I skipped several tasks and now want to restore them.  The number of my Facebook friends has exceeded 200 and my Scriggler readership keeps growing though I rarely publi...

When the Summer is Nearly Over Last week was full of little "events" which gave me great relief and comfort. I finished the draft of the first chapter of my last unit with the working title, The Witness in the Den. My maiden witness is John of Plano Carpini.  The full list, which I composed before doing research, enlists 14 names. However, I'm going to curtail it significantly: it should be an actual travel, which excludes fantastic travelogs. It should be penned by the witness himself, which excludes the Travels of Marco Polo. My next item is William of Rubruck.  I completed the second leg of the FutureLearn course in Roman history, The Archeology of Portus, led by a team from Southampton University. We focused on the reign of Emperor Trajan who enlarged Portus by digging a hexagonal harbor basin fringed by new warehouses and baths. We also reviewed the absolute dating using brick stamps and spoke about the entire port network which included canals, th...