Michael Baizerman Author

I'm still doing the research called "The Quest for the River of Gold". It focuses on the European search for the origin of West African gold in the Late Middle Ages and the Age of Discoveries. In my view, we have to realize why on earth European explorers would take pains to approach this part of the earth.  The research will cover four or five steps. The first of them is dubbed 'The Near Shore'. That is, near to southern Europe. Despite all religious antagonism of the Middle Ages, cross-cultural trade across the Mediterranean gained momentum even during the Age of the Crusades. West African gold enabled Italian economies, e.g. Genoa, Florence, and Venice, to mint gold coins and decorated European palaces and churches.  The first section describes European 'funduks' located in North African ports where western merchants were allowed to dwell and trade. They were permitted to install amenities to make their lifestyle insid...

As I have promised, I uploaded a draft copy of  The Rediscovered Islands. This will be the third chapter of Unit I of my third book.  The article delves into the medieval history of the Canary Islands from their rediscovery in the 1430s to European colonization in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. The author emphasizes the dark sides of the European intrusion, including ecological imperialism and genocide.   Tags: Brothers Vivaldi, Cape Non, Francesco Petrarch, Angelino Dulceti, Luis de la Cerda, Afonso IV, Boccaccio, Jean de Bethencourt, Gadifer de la Salle, Ferdinand of Aragon, Isaballa of Castile, Pedro de Vera, Alfonso de Lugo The article includes five parts. The first part, The Priority of Discovery, sums up what is known about the possible date of the discovery and the name of the first explorer. It shows that from the beginning there were several contenders on the coveted territory.  The second part, People Behind the Scenes, expla...

I have started processing the first part of my new research titled "The Quest for the River of Gold". In the previous post, I have shown the outline. It is a working model liable to changes.     The additional study has revealed quite a few European individuals stationed in North African ports on a permanent and temporary basis. Besides merchant communities focused on funduks (a specialized compound featuring a hostel, warehouse, shops, and other amenities, we can find Christian mercenaries on the service of Muslim rulers and even monks engaging in missionary activities quite often with the risk to their lives.  In other words, we cannot visualize the European Middle Ages only in the context of the eternal confrontation between the Cross and the Crescent rather than develop a more nuanced picture.  Since the chapter turns so complicated, I will work on each part separately in the hope to pull together diverse extracts on a later, more mature stage.  Thank...

I looked through my previous article to lay out the outline of my ongoing research. Provisional plan of Unit I chapter 4: 1.       European merchants in North Africa 2.       Trans-Saharan trade network and West African traders, Wangara 3.       Progress of European navigation along the West African coast 4.       Rio del Oro , Palola island, Prester John in Africa. 5.       Reappraisal Some changes may occur. Meanwhile, I have reached point 3 in my plan. Not every material will enter in the final version but I need to learn as much as possible about African trade before the contact. By 'contact', I mean the encounter between Portuguese sailors and the people of sub-Saharan Africa in the mid-15th century. I am still unsure where to end my research and how to depict the Portuguese interference in local business, whether in terms of the Age of Discovery or the context of slave raids. Every significant topic wi...

I uploaded another chapter of my unpublished book, "The Enchanting Encounter with the East". This extract is taken from Unit IV,  Mapping Marvels and Monsters: In the Shadow of the Iron Gate. The unit treats the popular medieval myth of Alexander's Gate. This is a resume of the chapter : The myth of the Caspian Gates was modeled on Alexander the Macedon's pursuit of his rival, the Persian emperor. Due to the patchy awareness of Asian geography, the initiators of the legend switched the locality from the Iranian Caspian Gates to the Caucasus. The Hellenistic ideal of the civilized world carved by a Macedonian military genius needed to be defended from barbarian incursions by an impenetrable barrier. You can view this extract at  https://www.academia.edu/43202485/Alexander_at_the_Caspian_Gates as well as the previous chapter  https://www.academia.edu/42876161/Meet_your_enemy As far as my second book project, I have resumed searching for a literary agent who can represe...

As you understand, this is a bid for new research. This time, I will review the basics of the Trans-Saharan trade during the Little Age of Discovery (XIV century). This overland exchange was a highway for transporting wares, technologies, and ideas among vast expanses of West Africa, linking diverse cultures of the Mediterranean coast, the Sahara oases, the Sahel grasslands, and the forest belt on the way to the Guinea Bay.   An essential part of this commercial network was the gold trade. The 'yellow metal' was panned in the shallows of the rivers, in the knee-deep water, or mined in the shafts.  At this stage, I have started collecting the material. Many years ago, I wrote an article by the same title. Nowadays, I will try to expand it. It will be the last chapter of Unit I of my new project.  Unit I: The Little Age of Discovery:   European Maritime Adventures in the Fourteenth century 1: How Wide Spans the Ocean Sea a)    The Heated Argument with Her...

I hope you are feeling well and the days of the coronavirus will be over although this epidemic seems to stay with us for a while. I spoke with an editor of the literary magazine about the possibility of publishing my latest research "The Rediscovered Islands" in Russian. As he was interested, I started to translate the article. Of course, there will be some minor corrections: it will be another version of the same text. I may add additional illustrations, especially the diagram that explains the clockwise movements of the ocean currents in the tropical belt of the Atlantic.  I resolved to skip over the topic of the discovery of Madeira and the Azores since I still recount the events of the XIV century or the Little Age of Discovery, as I have dubbed it. The discussion of naval charts relating to these islands will be put off to later chapters.  Meanwhile, I started collecting material about the quest for the Rio del Oro ('The Golden River') and the ...