Honestly a frustrating read. Presents as conclusive supposition and solid guesswork, without even hinting until very late in the tome that the legitimacy of one of its key pieces of evidence is contested as a possible forgery.

It’s very clear the author feels the world maybe was - and maybe is - “truly China’s” but at the end of it you have to ask, “so what?” He’s not arguing an academic point so much as an assertion that every advance through key points in history were done well after the Chinese accomplished them as (in his words) the “barbaric” Europeans availed themselves knowingly and unknowingly of Chinese achievement.

He even disparages Nordic accomplishment to suggest the Vikings never knew Greenland as well as the Chinese explorers did.

Again, that’s fine. It may even be true. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as parallel advancements or that the indigenous tribes of the Americas couldn’t have figured out things like lacquer or intricate carving on their own.

And to insist on one hand that currents couldn’t possibly carry artifacts across the seas and then use those currents as evidence that the Chinese must have made those same distant shores is a great example of arguing both sides of something without feeling the need to reconcile them.

Are there people that might get more out of this book than me? Sure. But I understand why I never heard of it til I paid $1 for it on the Goodwill bookshelf.

This author is terrible. TERRIBLE! He is not a real historian. His research is full of giant, gaping holes. And he makes WILD assumptions with his so-called evidence, when his own research does not unequivocally support his theory. He takes every presumption and assumes fact just because one can't disprove his theory.

He's absolutely terrible and apparently has written multiple books. I never finished this book, I just simply stopped reading because I couldn't take it any more.

This book discusses Chinese voyages that reached the North American continent years before Columbus did. I was unaware that voyages such as these had taken place, probably due to my lacking American education that only focuses on Christopher Columbus, but it seems very reasonable that many other peoples could have voyaged that distance if Scandinavians also did. This book had a lot of information about the fall of the Chinese empire during this time, and it would have been a good book to read when I was in my Modern China class last term.

Got the book as a gift and it took me 3 years to finish it just to call it: "pseudo-history".

Poorly researched. Highly speculative. A little condescending.

I found myself wondering throughout this book, how the hell this guy made the conclusions he did. After about 150 pages into it, I started noticing he wasn't making as many citations as he should be. A lot of his research comes from his own experience as a submarine captain, which he thinks puts him in a better position than other scholars before him.

He also makes excuses for the Chinese for basic mistakes, "the land was connected by ice, so they figured it was the same island" or "they could have passed by this at night so they might not have seen this". Further, when there's some completely inexplicable conclusion, he reminds the reader, "the Chinese had expert carpenters, stone masons, cartographers, astronomers, etc., so they could have figured this out, I believe they did." When they make a basic mistake, he chalks it up to mere oversight, but yet when the impossible is accomplished the Chinese were able to do it because they were experts?

The book does have an interesting premise, which is why I give it one star. Ultimately, I feel he rushed to judgment. He went about the book as a mystery, not as historical fact. I found it frustrating when he'd say "check the website for further information" or "negotiations are underway for the release of these documents".

Anyway, I stopped reading because I found the book less and less convincing. After 325 pages, I was no longer believing a word he said. After wondering if this guy was a fraud, I checked out the reviews on here and found many people wondering the same thing I was. After some research, the map that gave this guy the original idea turned out to be a fake. I found no reason to continue reading.

If you're looking for a history book, look away. Unfortunately, this is on the same level as the History Channel specials obsessed with aliens. Just replace "aliens!" with "the Chinese!" and you've got the gist of everything this author has written.

I naively started an audio version of the book and found the narrative enthralling... that is until I decided to actually fact-check something before reading the rest. There's a reason it's nominated as one of the least historically accurate books on the market, and responding to criticism with "You're just jealous you're not a commercial success!" does little to dispel what historians, archaeologists, linguists, sinologists, and various other experts, have been debunking from this book. There's more than enough detail provided in other reviews.

1421 is wildly inaccurate, fanciful, and frankly a bit insulting to the entire field of History. I'm convinced that the author was well aware he was spinning a tall tale to milk a money cow for years to come. Add to that very clear claim that the Native people of North and Central America couldn't possibly have created the various artefacts found in those regions which share some resemblance to Chinese craftwork, and you have an old-timey racist layer I don't care to unpack further.

That being said, if you're looking for inspiration, rather than a serious book about Chinese history and exploration, you're in luck.

I think the author knows just enough about the topic to pique a beginner's interest in either seafaring or sinology and while some of the questionable narratives are historically improbable, I think they can easily be borrowed for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign or something of the sort. It's definitely an adventurous story but it's closer to a fairy tale than a history book.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

We Westerners are of course familiar with the historical period known as the Renaissance; taking place between the 1300s and 1600s, it's the period when Europeans finally crawled out of their Dark-Age hole, rediscovered such ancient Greek concepts as science and philosophy, and started doing such things for the first time as sailing to the far corners of the planet. But did you know that China as well went through its own brief Renaissance at the same time, actually sailing around the planet on a regular basis a full 50 years before the Europeans started doing so, and that it was the maps and tips these Chinese gave to the Europeans that allowed the great figures from the "Age of Discovery" to make their voyages in the first place? Well, okay, so not everyone completely agrees with this theory; but it's the surprisingly strong one being espoused in the books 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, both of them by a retired British naval commander named Gavin Menzies, a hobbyist scholar who just happened to start stumbling across more and more evidence during his studies to support the theory mentioned above. See, the whole thing is problematic, because the Chinese actually went through a major period of isolationism right after this brief period of world-traveling, specifically as a overreaction to Ghengis Khan and his Mongol Hoard Horde(!), which had actually held and ruled China all the way up to the beginning of the 1400s, or in other words the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in that country.

According to well-known history, the Chinese were so set on turning inwards at this point, they actually destroyed most of their own records regarding their globetrotting sea voyages from this period, just so no one else would be tempted to make such trips again; according to Menzies, he has slowly been putting the pieces back together through shreds of evidence in other countries, stone markers and rescued scrolls and the like, revealing that the Ming Dynasty's own period of global seafaring was actually much larger than any of us have ever realized, a systematic series of successes that would've virtually guaranteed China's eventual world domination, if they had simply stuck with it instead of embarking on a four-hundred-year period of profound isolationism like they actually did. It's certainly an intriguing theory, and Menzies does a pretty credible job backing it up; these are giant thick books we're talking about (over a thousand pages altogether), just chock-full of evidence both direct and circumstantial. Combine this, then, with Menzies' tech-savvy prose concerning the problems of map-drawing and chart-creating in that period, which is why certain documents from that period need to be widened or narrowed in Photoshop before they'll actually line up with real coastlines; it's just one of the dozens of little issues and problems with all this old evidence, he argues, that prevented it from being all added together by anyone else before now. (See, one of the things Menzies did while in the navy was actually sail the ancient Chinese routes talked about in these books; he therefore has an expert's understanding on what these routes must've been like for the original Chinese sailors, and can thus explain the inconsistencies in the maps and charts they left behind.)

These were great reads, books that really crank the gears of the mind into action (why, just the descriptions of a glittering, wealthy Southeast Asia in the 1400s is worth the cover price alone); I'll warn you, though, that these are denser books than the usual airport and beach reads, not exactly academic in complexity but definitely stories you need to pay careful attention to while reading. That said, they both get a big recommendation from me, especially for the growing amount of people in the western half of the world who are becoming more and more curious these days about the mysterious history of the eastern half.

Out of 10: 9.3

The Strait of Magellan should be called the Strait of Hong Bao. Really? Why?

Because when Magellan traversed that homicidal passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific he had a chart to show him the way, a chart made by Chinese Admiral Hong Bao, one of the captains of the great Chinese treasure fleet that not only got to America 70 years before Columbus, but to Australia and Alaska 370 years before Cook.  This is history stood on its ear, backed by indigenous oral legends, physical artifacts, believe it or not the weather, and DNA.

Author and retired British submariner Gavin Menzies has sailed all of the waters he writes about, which makes for a you-are-there read.

There needs to be an option for "I stopped reading this."

I started this book literally years ago and couldn't get into it. Now I'm reading it and don't want to be into it. I actually agree with his premise. I was reading it to follow through his proof. I think it's highly likely that China was all over the globe before European travelers. That idea does not threaten me at all. I just don't like his side tangents that were handpicked by an adolescent boy. Whatever. Some books just don't click with people. I'm done trying on this one.

While this book presents itself as a revelation, it lacks citations or footnotes or much evidence for that matter to support such wild claims. I am not some jaded professor who believes in the current historical status quo, but to make such claims without good scholarly follow-through just begs for it to be debunked. Don't get me wrong, it was an entertaining read, which is why it got 2 stars and not one. But ultimately it is a futile book. The reason History is a social science is partly because new evidence and information is peer-reviewed. If the evidence supports further research or re-evaluates long-held historical notions, then it is absolutely necessary to do so. I don't think there is such a pro-Western or anti-Chinese conspiracy among modern historians that the "terrible truth" in this book would be willfully ignored.

As there are many examples of historical revisions that were necessary because of new evidence or racism and bigotry in the original historical perspective, I can only guess that Gavin Menzies had reason to believe that his "evidence" wasn't strong enough. In addition, he conflates history for which there is strong evidence with unsupported theories. For example, there is plenty of written and physical evidence that the Chinese were trading and sailing to the East African coast. But there is no substantiated evidence that they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. There is also evidence that the Chinese were well aware of many land masses throughout the South Pacific, but no evidence to support them landing and colonizing Australia or New Zealand. Menzies also claims DNA evidence of Chinese intermixing with aboriginal populations around the world. We all know that DNA evidence, while not conclusive, would certainly be very strong proof. So why isn't this data cited?

It is well-established that the most powerful agent of change when the New World came into contact with the Old World was disease. Since there is evidence of Sino-European contact during the Roman period, and both populations had enough density to be cauldrons for the same diseases, why didn't supposed Chinese contact with Native Americans or Australian Aboriginals result in devastating plagues? This to me is Menzies' largest theoretical hole, large enough to sail a treasure ship through.

On a much smaller note, the images that are in the book as well as some of Menzies' physical evidence are suspiciously inexact. Why not display images of the plinths with Chinese characters from Australia and West Africa and the Cape Verde Islands? Why not show the Mao Tsu statue "found" in Australia or the Gympie Pyramid? I suspect these are not shown because of the utter dearth of testable data or clear evidence supporting his theories. It is unfortunate that his claims are presented so sloppily and amateurishly that they invite such damning criticism.

Finally, I acknowledge the possibility of Menzies' claims. It is well-known that History of European Contact with the New World has long been a racist and exclusionary account of the clash of civilizations. Only recently (in the last 15 years) have there been serious attempts to include the perspectives of women, natives and common Europeans. If concrete evidence of Chinese contact with the rest of the world is discovered, then History should indeed be revised. But until then I will shelve this theory next to the Lost Continent of Muu and Mayan Trips to the Moon.

Utterly fascinating! I was completely enthralled by this book and the remarkable evidence provided by Gavin Menzies. Maps predating Columbus clearly showing the east coast of the Americas. Ancient Chinese artistic methods found in small communities in western Mexico. Wrecks of Chinese junks found all across the globe. Best of all... DNA.

This was an interesting book. It is a fascinating theory, although I do not know how much of it I believe to be true. It had too much of the author making statements along the lines of “I believe . . . “ or “I think . . . “ or “It has to be this way because . . . “; it sounded more like he was basing the book entirely upon his opinions and how he interpreted the data he found as opposed to looking at the evidence and proceeding from there. He makes the statement that most of the historical records of this fascinating era of exploration have been destroyed by jealous Mandarins after the Emperor died ca 1423ish. Apparently there is a statue of the Admiral in overall charge of the massive exploration fleet(s) in which the Admiral says he visited over three thousand countries and traveled a hundred thousand li (forty thousand nautical miles) before returning to China. That would be quite the journey!

It is about one man’s theory that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe and explored much, if not most, of the known world in the years between 1421 and 1423. He has some “citations” included in the book, as well as a generous appendix of other sources that can be looked at to help determine the veracity of his stories. His theory seems to rest on two primary factors and a couple of subsidiary factors: (1) he claims there are maps printed well before any European explorers discovered or visited the New World that show the coastlines and other features of the North and South American continents, and (2) Asian chickens (found scattered all throughout the New World as well as on some islands in the Pacific). His “secondary” factors include (1) European explorers describing some of the Native Americans they encountered as being Oriental in appearance, (2) plant-life and animal-life being found in other parts of the globe where they have no business being (“obvious evidence” the Chinese transplanted and transported them elsewhere), and (3) Chinese relics found in the Americas.

I think one of the biggest “weaknesses” of the book is that he writes using a lot of supposition and postulation on his part, where he constantly references his theories and ideas and guesses and fails to provide “hard facts.” Also, he states things are true merely because “they have to be true” in order for his theory to work (his theory being based on the fact that China was so much further advanced, as a civilization, than Europe during the 1300s and early 1400s, before becoming isolationist in nature). I think if the numerous wrecks around the globe he claims are Chinese junks are proven to be Chinese junks, then that will definitely give his theory a lot more substance, a lot more support, than merely his own presuppositions and hypotheses.

It is a fascinating theory, no doubt about it. I enjoyed reading the book, although it did get a bit long towards the end. He kept repeating himself quite a bit, too, which made me wonder if he were getting paid by the word (hahahah). All kidding aside, he does repeat himself a lot. Also, he makes some claims that were hard for me to swallow like how he was the best qualified to discover this Chinese fleet and to chart its course because of his experience as a navigator on British submarines, or the water level back in the 1400s was eight feet lower back then (it had to be, in order to help make sure the depictions on the “ancient maps” lined up with the formations we know today), or how he seemed to constantly “change things around” in order to get the physical world to line up with his theory, etc..

He does give a lot of background history prior to the launching of this “treasure fleet” whose goal was to extend Chinese influence around the planet and to bring tribute back to China. He shares how China interacted quite a bit with its neighbors, including the Muslims in Africa and the Hindus in India. India and China had quite a deal going until China turned isolationist and the Europeans came into the Pacific. He also compares China’s capabilities versus Europe’s (at that time as well as the best Europe was capable of until the 1800s). It was pretty humorous to read; the Chinese emperor had a fleet large enough to transport one million men at once (according to the author) whereas when Britain invaded France, the king only had, maybe, thirty thousand men, and it took multiple transits using only five vessels at the most. Quite a difference! China was much further along than Europe was in terms of knowledge, technology, medicine, weaponry, industry, and civilization (in general).

The author does a little wishful thinking along the lines of “What if the Chinese had not turned isolationist like they did? How much different would the world be?”, which was okay with me. The book did make me wonder how things would have turned out if the Mandarins had not forced China to become isolationist in nature. At the same time, I was annoyed at how he compared the “peaceful” Chinese with the “barbaric Christian conquerors” who came later. I mean, I get it – the Europeans who claimed to want to “save the world for Christ” as one of their goals for exploring sure failed to demonstrate the love of God to those “heathens” across the ocean(s). At the same time, it is not really a just comparison, because the Chinese could be just as brutal as the Christians, as could other races at different points in time in their national histories. So, while I “get it” as to why he made the comparison, I still did not feel like it was necessary to the book and overall narrative.

He also comes across as claiming that the Portuguese actually made it to the New World and into the Pacific long before the Spanish did. They were able to do so because a Portuguese personage apparently was believed by the author to have traveled for a time with one of the fleets and returned to Portugal with Chinese maps of the newly-discovered regions in hand. He also quotes various European explorers as making statements implying they had “extra knowledge” about where they were going and how they would get there that clearly shows they had maps or other information at their fingertips to help ensure the success of the voyage. Regardless, he claims the Portuguese made it to Australia, the Orient, and maybe even the Caribbean before Spain or England.

It was an interesting book, and a fun book to read. So, for entertainment value alone, I’d give it 3.6 – 3.8 stars, rounded down to three. However, all of the constant hypothesizing and choosing to interpret data to fit how he wanted to see it and saying something “had to happen this way because it had to happen this way in order for my theory to work!” got kinda annoying (that, and those blasted Asian chickens!). That, and his writing style, would put it around 2.3 – 2.1 stars. I’ll be generous and give it three stars (say, 2.7 rounded up). Personally, I do not care whether or not the Chinese “discovered” the Americas first; granted, if it turns out they did, I am okay with that. Kudos to them. I was surprised to learn the Vikings had landed in North America nearly five hundred years before Columbus back in junior high, so I am cool if the Chinese landed in South America and Central America well before the Europeans. So, yeah, despite the annoyances throughout the book, I still enjoyed reading about this author’s theory.