650 pages of wishful thinking, skewed facts and pseudo-history.

I started this book very excited about the whole idea that indeed the Chinese did circumnavigate the world and chart almost every land mass they encountered decades and even centuries before the Europeans did. However, the "facts" as presented were often not quite facts that could be proven. At least one instance occurred in my home state and I KNOW that if this was proven to be true, I would have heard about it! But, alas, no. So, save your money, time and effort and read something of real value.

You might have that certain relative in your family who is affable enough, but has some really weird ideas that he loves to go on about. For the sake of this review, let's call him "Uncle Gavin." Uncle Gavin is harmless, and charms your friends, but he has one pet topic that you try to steer him away from. Before you know it, he's started asking your friends who they think discovered the world and after a short time, the friend's nods and smiles go from sincerely interested to polite to barely hanging on, and they're looking around desperately for someone to rescue them from this conversation.

Uncle Gavin wrote this book. His premise sounds interesting, and perhaps sane, if far-fetched: he claims that the Chinese sailed essentially the entire world in 1421-23 and made maps of such voyages that were later used to guide the Portuguese and Spanish explorers who "discovered" America and other parts of the world. Why this has been a hidden fact for so long: the Chinese burned nearly every record of the voyages, stopped exploration, and basically forgot about the whole thing over the centuries. Why Uncle Gavin is the only person to have figured this out: he used to captain submarines and therefore knows how ocean currents work and can read a nautical chart. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

In any case, I was willing to go along with him at first, but it became apparent pretty quickly that things were spiraling out of control. I rarely make notes on audio books, but I found myself frantically scribbling things down when I was listening to this one. Things like:

"Just because Verrazzano compared some lighter-skinned Indians and their manner of dress to the "Eastern" style doesn't mean that they are descended from his [Menzies'] imaginary pregnant concubines that were put ashore from his imaginary overcrowded voyages."

I was going to list more, but as I look at that one, I think it sums up everything. Look, it's an interesting idea that the Chinese could have sent an enormous fleet out to see what there was out there, and that they could have drawn up a map of everything, and then decided to close their borders and give up on the outside world, and that the maps could have ended up in the hands of the European explorers, and that those explorers could have found knick-knacks that were Chinese and people who might have been descended from Chinese people who ended up there long-term one way or another. But if you're going to tell me, Uncle Gavin, that the Chinese took out 40 or 50 ships which were wrecked in various places and stayed and lived there, you're going to have to come up with some physical evidence. Wrecked ships off India, or eastern Africa, or Australia simply do not prove that Chinese people built the Bimini Road in the Caribbean to get their ships on land for repairs or had a settlement on Greenland (I am not kidding. I wish I were kidding.).

If this were half as long and half as crazy, it might be worth a perusal. As it is, run from this book. Read Foucault's Pendulum, which features the same sort of wild connect-the-dots game and also has going for it that it is fiction.

PS - It turns out that Menzies has also published 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance. I imagine that he is now deep into the writing of 1468: The Year China Traveled to the Moon and Discovered Life and 1498: The Year China Invented Synthetic Life and Created the Spice Girls.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This review was written by the author’s alter ego, Edwin Wendries.

Forget everything you thought you knew about world history. It’s fake history. Now listen to me. Don’t listen to the naysayers trying to discredit me because I was only a Royal Navy Submarine Commanding Officer and not a historian. I’ve travelled the world. I know ocean currents. I’ve seen things. Those academics don’t know what they’re talking about. They just sit in fancy offices and type type type. They try to bring people like me down because they think I’m stepping on their toes. It’s a cover up. They don’t want you to know the truth. Remember all the hoo-ha about the Vikings being the first to discover America? They didn’t want us to believe it. They’re stuck in their books and don’t want to know. I found evidence that China discovered the entire world before anyone else did. Unfortunately most of the documents about this were destroyed and China has no recollection of it. But I travelled the world and found them in library basements gathering dust. The maps were 100% accurate. I had to alter them myself because cartographers at the time didn’t know how to chart them. But don’t worry. I fixed that, and you can believe me now. And no, I don’t speak Chinese. Why should I? Any idiot can read a map. If you want to know what really happened around the world, read this, it’s true. Take my word for it.

I see this book in every History section of every bookshop and the idea of something challenging conventional History does seem rather appealing, so I figured I'd give it a go.

And...

Well, it is certainly is an interesting read. I admit, I tend to read history books moderately critically, but not without immediately running to find any arguments and counter-arguments about it. But with this, right from the off, I was itching to see what other historians said about it. It's written in an engaging style, albeit one which does get repetitive after a while (it's looooooooooong). But it strained against credibility at times, as each successive discovery blasted away any lingering doubt the author's theories.

As it turns out most historians think this is a whole load of bunk. The way it presents itself as an injection of new perspectives and knowledge into the staid convention is well done in the text, but the holes, the convenient omissions, are all noticeable for the discerning reader (as you should be with any history books). It's a shame because it's seductively written, at least for the first 350 or so pages before the repetition renders it less compelling.

So two stars for being entertaining but the mislabelling of it as History means I couldn't really give it much more. History is one genre of books which can't be read in isolation, sorry.

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.

great book about the discoveries the Chinese made of the new world and other places like Tasmania long before Columbus sailed looking for the new route to India. great tale.

So much for all that crap they taught us in school about who discovered America! The Chinese did it first. All the European explorers were following charts that the Chinese had created in the early 1420s. Its fascinating to see how the revelation of what "really" happened developes for the author as he travels all over the world finding evidence in shipwrecks, artifacts and structures, plants and animals, languages and customs, and genetic markers in the indigenous peoples of Africa, the New World, and Australia and New Zealand. This book, and its accompanying website that is constantly being updated with new evidence from around the world, are going to change how we teach history.

Columbus and his brother were frauds--literally! They stole maps from the Portuguese (a capitol crime at the time), and then altered the maps to fool the Spanish into thinking the Western route to the Spice Islands was shorter so they would finance Christopher's expeditions. Part of the reason he thought he was in Asia when he landed in the Caribbean was because his crew encountered "light skinned" Asians that were the descendants of Chinese who'd been shipwrecked there 70 years before.

Abgebrochen auf S. 82

Ich möchte dieses mal, dieses Buch überhaupt nicht bewerten, weil ich es nicht beurteilen kann.
1421 ist bislang interessant, gut geschrieben, hat ausreichend Quellen und ist somit solide. Für ein Sachbuch ist der Schreibstil sehr flüßig. Der Anhang mit den Quellen und Anmerkungen umfasst 200 Seiten und ist lesenswert!

Abgebrochen habe ich es, da mich die Thematik doch nicht so sehr interessiert, wie anfangs gedacht. Es geht viel mehr um Seefahrt und es ist ratsam schon ein wenig über China zu kennen. Manchmal ist es mir durchaus zu detailliert gewesen. Bislang lag der Fokus eher auf den Errungenschaft Chinas.

Ich würde nicht von dem Buch abraten aber es geht hierbei vielmehr um Seefahrt und die Politik der Zeit, was für mich nicht wirklich interessant ist.

I have managed to get about 1/3 into this book, and have now accepted that I will never struggle through to the end.

The idea the story was really interesting, but the point was proven very early on - and every chapter after that was just a repetition of the realisation that China discovered America first. Considering this fact was disclosed so early on, I was expecting a lot more about what other areas that may have come to light, the consequences for China, or a more engaging travel journal

Instead we were taken through the journey with constant references to the authors time in the navy. I think my main problem with the book was with the language and the author's story telling capability. If he had teamed up with a better narrator, it could have been a fascinating story. Instead, it just never managed to engage ...

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.

Observasi yang kontroversial dimana Gavin Menzies menyatakan bahwa sebelum Cristopher Columbus menjelajahi benua Amerika para penjelajah China sudah lebih dulu menemukan benua tersebut dilengkapi dengan peta dan teknologi observasi China kuno

I enjoyed reading this and found the theories fascinating. I was all but taken in by it until I started researching some of the author's claims on my own. I found that most of his evidence is based on hearsay or conjecture; it doesn't stand up to normal historical or scientific scrutiny.

So, an enjoyable read, but probably mostly fantasy. Try researching the claim about the Chinese junk buried in the Sacramento River Delta in California and you'll see what I mean.

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