Book description
Eager to expand his commercial empire, ambitious merchant banker Nicholas van der Poele travels to Africa, followed by Gelis van Borselen, a determined young woman who blames Nicholas for her sister's death. 12,500 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.
Why read it?
1 author picked Scales of Gold as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book is part of Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolò series, about merchants and trade in the fifteenth century and I love the whole series for its focus on commerce and goods – commodities like sugar, cloth, dyestuffs, and whale oil – and its scope, taking us from Bruges to Italy, Cyprus and Rhodes, Trebizond in the Black Sea, Egypt, Iceland, and beyond.
I chose this particular book in the series because of its unusual focus on the gold trade in Africa, and the cultured Islamic intellectual world of Timbuktu, just before it fell to the Songhai Empire. Written about…
From Lucy's list on The best historical novels that convey the feel of the Middle Ages.
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