1421: The Year China Discovered America

Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Book
Review: I am giving this book a high rating because I found it extremely interesting reading. I agree with critics that individual pieces of evidence -- unexplained artifacts, pre-Columbian maps that appear to show coastlines not yet explored by Europeans, plant exchange and DNA of some Amerindian groups -- do not by themselves support the detailed itinerary claimed by the author for the Chinese voyages of discovery of 1421-23. However, taken as a whole, the evidence seems to indicate that something was going on.

The question that occurred to me when reading the criticism was this. It is my understanding that historians agree that these voyages were a huge undertaking involving hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of men. The author and the few other sources I've read agee that lands bordering the Indian Ocean and at least the east coast of Africa were visited. Does it make sense that this is all that was done during the two year voyages? Specifically, were hundreds of ships and thousands of men necessary to visit lands that the Chinese already had some familiarity with? And if the whole fleet was not occupied in this region, where were they and what were they doing?

Rating:
Summary: shakes things up
Review: A good book does not have to be satisfying and an end in itself. A good book can also make you ask questions and go out and seek answers for yourself. 1421 is such a book to me.

After getting past the blind spot of cynicism regarding the book's rapid sales, or personal prejudice... I finally could detect that this book is shaking establishments up, stirring up our concepts of history, and underscoring the need to embark on, examine and present new and valid research on the topic of the impact of Chinese navigational history on World history--- and therein lies its overall value.

The book may indeed have a non-didactic approach to findings and research but it definitely zooms in to a hushed and unexplained curio that includes uncannily accurate maps in Europe that predate European overseas-exploration, ancient chinese artifact findings and strains of sino-DNA in far-off lands, and cross-overs of flora and fauna(that include pre-spanish existence of maize in the Philippines and chinese roses in California) between Asia Pacific and the Americas.

Curiousities can't be brushed off because there are no "acceptable" explanations and theories. Although scholars and historians may rely on their scientific process they can still be subject to their own centricities when it comes to what is deemed acceptable on their parts.

On an open and wider scale, someone has got to speak up and call for closer examination of the seeming random curiosities that are brought up in "1421". There is an atmosphere in the world that is brought about by a widespread awakening human need to reexamine long-established ideas and theories and selective history... 1421's popularity is not necessarily due to greed and publishers' aggressive marketing. More people nowadays are willing to hear out and explore new ideas.

The apocryphal Christian gospels have been uncovered from the dessert having obviously been forced into hiding by hostile and deadly forces in the Church hundreds of years ago. More and more people want to know what they are about--- the response of people to today is mixed---on one end, there are those who invalidate them ---on the other end, they are studied and re-examine for new insight and renewed significance. Regardless, people want to know what they are about.

New times call for new ideas. Universal wisdom will always apply of course.

But history is written from human perspectives and is not infallible. The value of this books lies in its ability to shake the foundations of old establishments, throw open the doors and windows and let the stale air out, fresh air in and to let light shine in...

Read 1421 and throw open your doors and windows --- ask questions, seek answers.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Subject, so-so writing
Review: The subject is fascinating: China and its commercial fleet and their voyages of exploration, and even more: China's high level of civization that the West took centuries to equal. The author, however, has to puff himself up and repeat how he discovered the information to support his view. The fact that he was a naval Captain and had visited the areas traveled by the Chinese and had technical knowledge about sea travel that other historians didn't, allowed him to put together facts thought to be unrelated. But we GET it. He did a great job, but better writing and editing would reduce the book and make it a more readable, and enjoyable experience.

Rating:
Summary: Worth taking a look at it, needs more added -- it's coming!
Review: I'm giving this book 4 stars for one main reason - it brings forward a new theory that many other scholars believe *is possible* but does not prove that it *did happen*. However, not enough evidence is available yet to conclude that Gavin's theory is just fiction.

I am a graduate student in history and just attended (today) a panel at the annual American Historical Association's meeting in DC. Mr. Menzies and several prominent, scholarly Chinese historians (including John Wills and Valerie Hansen) spoke on a panel about his book. I went to the panel expecting to hear the scholars shoot down Mr. Menzies' book. To some extent, they did. However, when Mr. Menzies stood up and presented new information on DNA and, more importantly, some brand new documents out of Fuijan province in China that came from a Chinese historian there, the academic historians were interested in further investigation (mostly the documents, but each admitted they cannot say the Chinese *didn't* reach the Americas).

As someone training to become an academic historian, I will say this about what I got out of today. One of the historians on the panel made quite possibly the best point out of everyone -- something I will remember as I now look more seriously at this theory put before us. There are many, many unexplained pieces of evidence that Mr. Menzies brings forth in this book. For instance, the maps that existed before the European explorers, showing the perfect shape of Africa, South America, the Azores, etc. Now, the Chinese may not have discovered these per say, but until someone else can prove that ANOTHER group of people were the first, or that there is another explanation for these curiosities (because it is agreed the Europeans were usually not the first) -- who are we to heavily criticize Mr. Menzies? After all, we have no explanation of the Chinese artifacts showing up on the West coast. We have no explanation of how South America was perfectly drawn on a 1424 map - maybe the Arabs did it? Fine, go out and try to prove that.

So, when you pick up this book you should sit back and look with a critical eye but you also need to look at it like a lot of other historical issues - a possible explanation or theory used to construct a narrative that will connect the past in our minds.

As for those who believe the historical narrative they teach you in the public school system, keep in mind that what you learn in school is WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOU TO LEARN! Think about it. (Also, pick up a copy of "Silencing the Past" by Michel Trouillot, who discusses how certain "powerless" people are silenced in history -- in his case he discusses the Haitian Revolution. Reading a book like that gets you to think differently about a theory like the one in this book). What we teach our students in schools today is already missing so much and simply "accepted" narrative anyways.

One last thing about this book -- use the companion website to view evidence and all evidence updates. Mr. Menzies mentioned it several times today in his discussion as it contains a lot more and the newest evidence he presented to us today -- http://www.1421.tv

Rating:
Summary: poor science fiction, not worth a second glance...
Review: Mr. Menzies, for all his work, has compiled something (one hesitates to call it a book) that would not pass muster in most middle-school history classes.

Even the most ardent Sinoplhiles would hesitate to call this work "history". It is less historical than Oliver Stone's JFK and more on a level with something out of Kim Jong Il's PR network.

Shame on you Gavin!!

Rating:
Summary: Review of Gavin Menzies book called 1421: The Year China ...
Review: The claims made by the author are very well substiantiated in the text. That the Chinese circumnavigated the world and discovered North and South Americs, the islands of the Carribean, Azores, Cape Verde Islands, Australia, New Zealand and Antartica, and many other places, decades or centuries before Europeans relying on copies of Chinese maps, found the same places, appears certain.

That the Chinese established settlements in many of the new lands encountered also seems obvious. Indeed, the links between the great South American civilisations and Chinese exploration invites a closer look.

The book is extremely well researched, well written and interesting. On the evidence presented, it is clear that the Spanish, Portugeuse and English have wrongly appropriated the credit that is due to the Chinese. Relevant conventionally accepted Histories are wrong and must be corrected.

The culture and ethos of the Chinese in obtaining influence with leaders of other lands through the device of trade and kindness is very pleasing. Chinese culture contrasts sharply with the barbarity and cruelty of Europeans, Christians, who readily used terror to plunder the property and to eradicate or damage civilisations unlike their own.

Rating:
Summary: a con job
Review: Gavin Menzies' 1421: The Year China Discovered America is the most ridiculous book I have ever read. Its claims are so implausible and the supporting evidence so facile, I can't believe that even Mr. Menzies thinks true what he contends. I think the book and the hoopla surrounding it are nothing but a giant practical joke, a literary fraud on a par with Orson's Wells radio broadcast about a Martian invasion. Mr. Menzies...is a former nuclear submarine skipper...

At its core the book is about making money. And that's all there is to it.

Shorn of all the tangential supporting "evidence" ...the foundation of Menzies' argument is that a large fleet of large Chinese...with a large number of crew and, of course, concubines sailed away from China and were at large for two years. When they returned to China, there was a regime change in progress and everything written about the expedition was destroyed.

However, mapmakers on the fleet accurately mapped the entire world and it was their maps that enabled Columbus, et. al., to discover the New World.

Menzies has not a shred of evidence connecting these maps made by the Chinese with the maps in Europe of from about 1450. He just assumes a. China was the only country big enough, civilized enough, and nautical enough to have sailed the whole world in the early 1400s (and we know Europeans hadn't done it), b. the maps in Europe were remarkably accurate, and c. therefore the Europeans discovered America and sailed around the world thanks to Chinese maps.

It is too tedious to refute piece by piece all Menzies' evidence. What is plain is that his method is simply to pile up as much of it as he can. And that's what makes the evidence and the thesis suspect: not merely suspect, ridiculous!

As I said in the beginning I suspect Menzies is just pulling our legs. The book is, admittedly, a work in progress. In the hardcover version, Menzies promises that the forthcoming paperback edition will correct all the mistakes in the hardcover edition that have come to light. I suspect that such corrections will double the size of the paperback. Then he'll need to correct the paperback version. And so on, forever. A responsible author (and publisher) tries to get it right the first time. In this case, though, sales figures are what matters. Shame on William Morrow for letting this Englishman carry his con job to the States.

Rating:
Summary: 1421 the year arab sailors discovered the world
Review: I enjoyed this book and thought it had many interesting points but the logic is completely faulty. He jumps from one conclusion to another and at times it as if he is writing a novel and not a serious analysis of history. If he wants to disestablish the myths around european explorers he has to do better than just come up with myths of his own. He does have some good points about the maps that european sailors took with them. The trouble is that Menzies points out that columbuses 'discoveries' were no such thing then goes on to talk about his own discoveries, nearly all of which are either well known to academics or baseless supersition. 1421 as a pet theory is probably about as good as the theory that Columbus had that Japan was 3000 miles off the coast as Portugal. Like Columbus, Menzies is a great dreamer, but logic is his weak point. I admire both men for following their dreams but does not prove either of their theories right.
Mezies starts with the undeniable fact that early maps made around 1500 show far more than europeans could have seen. This does not necessarily mean that they were made by Chinese sailors, if they were neither does it mean that they were made specifically in the time period he points out. Alternative hypothesis's are casually dismissed whilst his theory gets built up on the flimsiest of evidence. Early in the book he is commenting on a map that the Portuguese had in 1424 that shows islands in the atlantic. He had already pointed out that portugal learned many navigation techniques from Arabs, particaularly after they captured the city of Ceuta in 1415. It would seem likely that Arab sailors had made this map, the name Antilla itself is of Arabic derivation and Arab scholars as well known as Al Idrisi have mentioned Arab sailors crossing the atlantic. At least the idea would be worth a mention, but Menzies goes for the China option. My impression of Menzies is that being a British navy man he has looked at the 15th century found that Zheng He's fleets were the nearest thing to the British Navy, so assumes that they are responsible. He may have learned about map making in the Queens navy but it does not seem the best breeding ground for logical thinking. One of his attachments to China is via his childhood and his chinese nanny. If his father had been posted in Aden and he had an Arab nanny this book would have probably been titled 1421, the year Arabs discovered the world - I don't believe it myself, but given ten years research, I could probably hotch potch together enough evidence to match Menzies.
The biggest shame about the book is that he does make some good points but they get lost in the nonsense. His analysys of the Piri Reis being made by mariners searching for a place to identify Canopus's exact point in the sky is excellent. The trouble is that he again comes up with the infuriating line 'it could only have been the Chinese'. I am no expert but know that African sailors from Mali crossed the Atlantic and Mali's capital Timbuktu had one of the finest Universities in the world at the time. It would also be credible that the Portuguese made these discoveries (unlike the Chinese,they are mentioned on the map) and sensibly decided to not tell the rest of Europe until they had time to exploit them. there are other options but Menzies does not explore them.
As well as this bias which is forgivable,there is a more of an element of dishonesty in Menzies. His web sites talk of the book being launched by a speech given at the royal geographic society, but the society themselves point out that although he is a member and did was hire their hall.
The achievements of Zheng He should be more widely known, but frankly they deserve better than this. The treasure fleets largely spent their time sailing established routes in the Indian Ocean. It was an attempt to monopolize existing trade not discover new lands. It wasn't even successful in this, the fleets were most probably scrapped as they were a large unwieldy state enterprise that wasn't making any money. They were the concordes of their day. Thinking logically, if China had wanted to discover new lands would it have sent out a huge fleet built for trading purposes at extortionate cost? Surely a few junks would have sufficed
To call Menzies a fraud would however be a little unfair, he is to upfront about shoddy research for that. There is one point in the book where he is discussing a stone with carved writing on it in the Cape Verde islands. There are two languages, one portuguesee the other unknown. Menzies obviously wants this to be made by the Chinese, but there is one problem, the script isn't Chinese. The closest he gets to deciphering the script (yet not the message) is somebody from the Bank of India saying it looks a bit like Malayalam (a southern Indian language spoken in calicut, Kerala - the destination of vasco da gama's voyage). This to Menzies is evidence that it was made by someone from a Chinese voyage specifically in 1421 and the discussion is taken no further. Personally I believe if the Chinese had carved a stone they would have carved it in Chinese. Obviously they are other nationalities aboard , but this means the only evidence Menzies needs is one person saying it 'looks a bit like' some Asian language. A more obvious explanation is that the Portuguese brought back some Indians who made their carving next to teh Prtuguese.
BR> The book was a fun read but not a serious piece of scholarship at all. By the end I was irked by his constant insistence that he had 'proved' things, when in fact all he had come up with was a rather interesting idea and bunged together lots of circumstnatial evidence. This builds up into a house of cards as he uses his own previous assumptions to back up further ones.

Rating:
Summary: Controversial Alternative History
Review: Gavin Menzies employed his experience as a mariner with detaled research into Chinese and European history to make a daring conclusion: that Chinese discovered the New World (and much more) at least seventy years before Columbus made his first journey.

This thick volume is filled with facts, experience, conjecture, a fair amount of logic, and certainly passion. Despite some repetition and a tendency for conjecture, Menzies serves up a compelling circumstantial case. His story reads something like a historical mystery novel, finding clues and often answers from a wide range of sources.

The strength of 1421... lies in its vivid evocations of Chinese maritime life, from shipbuilding to sailing. It's just one of several books that are now being published on this extraordinary era in Chinese history.

Rating:
Summary: Odd but interesting revisionist account
Review: It's a shame no book actually exists chronicling the amazing and far reaching voyages of the Chinese discovery fleet. This was a massive fleet numbering more then ten thousand men. It was larger then anything the Europeans would ever put to see to serve the sole purpose of discovery. The Chinese fleet was also an anomaly. China was the 'middle kingdom' and the Chinese knew they were the center of the universe. So it was odd the prior to 1421 a large fleet was sent five times to discover new lands. The Chinese did not try and conquer these lands, and they barely even tried to trade. Thus it is a shame this book does not detail these voyages more.

Instead the author decided to write some revisionist history. The author decided that 'maybe' the Chinese Fleet, on its sixth and last voyage(one whose findings would later be burned and all record of discovery destroyed) 'discovered' America. Apparently they planted some corn and cavorted with the Indians. The evidence? Well none. The author conjures up some interesting stories about a European who accompanied the voyage, and some other theories that support the theory that Cook and Magellan had 'maps' that already depicted the new world. Well lets not go crazy. If Columbus knew where he was going then why was he scared that his crew would fall off the face of the earth? There is some question about why Magellan thought he could go all the way around the earth, but just because Magellan had guts doesn't mean he was following Chinese maps.

The book is disjointed, the author speaks in the first person far to much and little evidence is used. It is an interesting book and an interesting theory but unfortunately its just totally incorrect.