Highly speculative, this book adduces a host of evidences of varying quality to assert that Chinese fleets had visited, even occasionally colonized, both Americas, Australia, West Africa and many Pacific and Atlantic islands before the Europeans. Some of the claims--such as Chinese knowledge of Australia--are stronger than others--such as that about the visits to the polar ice caps. One--that about the Bimini Road--is very farfetched.

Menzies' arguments rest primarily on maps, some extant, utilized by later European explorers, maps which showed routes and places no European had yet visited. Accepting this--and some appear incontrovertibly prescient--where did they come from? Who made them? His answer is China and the Chinese. Here his arguments appear strongest. The rest of his arguments, however, very greatly in quality. Much reference is made to wrecks, to artifacts, to the transmission of flora, fauna and DNA--much of which I'm not competent to judge, most of which is only glancingly referred to. To evaluate this book would require following thousands of references.

Still, as an exercise of the historical imagination this book is provocative and such claims for China can be expected to increase as China and the Far East rise in global prominence.

PS For a scathing critique of Menzies read the article "How Not to (Re)Write World History", published by Robert Finlay in the Journal of World History, Vol. 15, #1, 2004.

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.

I found this book to be incredibly fascinating. While many would find reading a book about history and sailing and discovery of the world, perhaps dull and boring. I was completely enthralled and interested throughout the entire book. I loved the included pictures of artifacts and maps, as well as look forward to exploring the accompanying website. The facts as presented prove the false narrative taught of Columbus discovering north or even South America, of Cook discovering Australia, of Magellan, and others given credit for world lands discovery as all completely false. China was a far advanced country and civilization that spent 2 years sailing massive fleets around the world, being the first to discover the new worlds and new people. However, their approach was with harmony and peace, unfortunately not how later "discovery" encounters proceeded. The notion of Chinese DNA being in various tribes and peoples around the world to me is the piece that seals it for me. Along with the artifacts and buildings. History has always fascinated me, and I learned so much about the advanced society that was in China, decades ahead of the rest of the world, but even learned about sailing and world ocean current and winds. While this doesn't read as a textbook, it does contain a lot of information and some details and explanations that I admit when a bit over my head. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the true history and amazing talents required in the discovery of the "world"

This is a completely enthralling book dedicated to a really ballsy thesis--that the treasure fleets of the Ming Dynasty charted most of the world, including North and South America as well as Siberia and Antarctica, in 1421. According to Menzies, European explorers including Columbus, Magellan, and Cook were working off of already existing charts that had been essentially stolen from the Chinese when they made their own voyages of exploration.

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence presented--everything from ancient maps to European ship logs to shipwrecks to lingual analysis to plant migrations to DNA. Some of the declarations are fairly easy to believe, such as the notion that the Chinese were well aware of the location of Australia. Others seem awfully far-fetched, like the declaration that Chinese sailors built the Bimini Road to repair reef-savaged junks.

Taken as a whole and in isolation, this is an incredibly compelling and fascinating argument. Menzies claims the support of an armada of Chinese scholars--this isn't merely one guy out on a mission of his own. And he has plausible-sounding explanations for most possible objections.

Is it true? I'll admit I have no idea. A part of me wants it to be--it's just such a cool idea. But I'll freely admit I don't have nearly the background required to evaluate this. There are dozens of websites that seem devoted to proving him wrong--although there are also dozens of websites devoted to proving the moon landing wrong, too, so that doesn't necessarily mean much. I'd be very much interested in reading a rebuttal by a group of qualified historians. But again, my own lack of knowledge hampers me here--I don't actually know who is considered a respected authority, who is a crank, and who is just inflexible and has an axe to grind. It's certain that there's a lot of "established" history that we're aware is not actually true. But at the same time, this just seems too good to be true. And there's definitely a bunch of places where I think he's making unjustified leaps of logic.

But it certainly is interesting.