Product Description

On 8 February 1421 the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, 500 foot long junks made from the finest teak and mahogany, were led by Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was "to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last over two years and circle the entire globe. When they returned Zhu Di had fallen from power and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They has also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia 350 years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude 300 years before the Europeans. Gavin Menzies has spent 15 years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Chinese fleet. In this historical detective story, he shares the account of his discoveries and the incontrovertible evidence to support them. His narrative brings together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts by Chinese explorers and the later European navigators. It brings to light the artefacts and inscribed standing stones left behind by the Emperor's fleet, the evidence of sunken junks along its route and the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, in thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92351 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 520 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you're going to make a stir, you might as well do it in style. And Gavin Menzies has caused one, big time. In 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, this retired Royal Navy submarine commander, who only visited China for the first time on his 25th wedding anniversary, claims that the Chinese navigator Zheng He discovered America some 71 years before Columbus. And not content with this, he goes on to suggest that Zheng He learnt how to calculate longitude several centuries before John Harrison supposedly nailed the problem. Unsurprisingly, this has not gone down too well in some areas and the book has been the target of some scepticism.

Although Menzies has unearthed a few unknown primary sources, the bulk of his thesis depends on amalgamating several disparate areas of research into a grand unified theory. So he combines what we do know--principally that the Chinese built huge sailing ships with nine masts and that Asiatic chickens were discovered in South America--into what he considers compelling evidence. Menzies has also turned up some maps from the pre-Columbus era that appear to show the Americas, along with a few shipwrecks and Ming artefacts from along his supposed route.

It all makes for a gripping read, even if the sum doesn't quite add up to the whole. For all the detail, Menzies is some way off providing proof. None of the supposed 28,000 colonists has left any documentary evidence because all records, boats and shipyards associated with his voyage were burnt by imperial order in 1433. This surely begs the question--if we know so much of Zheng He's voyages around the Indian Ocean, how come we know nothing of his trips further east? Nor, conveniently for Menzies, did any of the colonists return home in triumph. They either died en route or skulked home to obscurity after they were disowned by the emperor.

So you either accept Menzies as an act of faith or brush him aside with scepticism. Either way, you'll have a lot of fun in the process as the book is never less than provocative. And even the sceptics will find themselves hoping Menzies has got it right, because there's something intrinsically uplifting about the notion of an amateur historian getting one over the professionals. --John Crace

Evening Standard
'Exhaustively researched . . . an intriguing and highly persuasive thesis, told with passion and energy.'

Daily Mail
A book as engrossing as any adventure story

Customer Reviews

History rewritten - an excellent read
In this outstanding book, retired submarine captain Gavin Menzies rewrites history and takes us on an epic adventure around the world in the company of huge Chinese fleets carrying soldiers, craftsmen and concubines.

Using a mixture of medieval maps and manuscripts, an in-depth and practical maritime knowledge, botanical evidence and sound reasoning, Menzies puts forward his theory that China, not Europe, discovered America, Australia, and the rest of the world - decades before Europeans set sail for distant seas.

In a rich and descriptive style, Menzies tells of the lives of the Emperor Zhu Di, who ordered the voyages of exploration, and of Admiral Zheng He, his friend and chief eunuch. He goes on to describes the huge treasure fleets and tracks their course across the face of the globe. At each landfall, Menzies gives evidence of the Chinese presence, delving into the folklore of the area's inhabitants and noting the presence of Asian plants and chickens far from China's shores, predating the first Europeans.

This book is a must for anyone interested in keeping up to date with the most recent historical discoveries. In one fell swoop, Menzies has turned the old idea that Europeans first discovered America and circumnavigated the globe on its head. The history books will have to re-written!

1421 is written in an enjoyable style and the author's modesty about his groundbreaking work makes the reader warm to him immediately. Not only are the journeys of the Chinese ships recounted but also the author's own travels in their wake, as he flies around the world seeking evidence of the voyages and advice from a number of experts. This gives the book a double flavour of adventure that makes it hard to put down. An interesting and well-written read.

Lovely PR hype - but sadly fairly rubbish history
You'd hope for more from a former Royal Navy commander, but sadly while his publicity machine is first rate, his history is anything but.

It would be lovely to turn what we know about naval history on its head and say that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He conclusively 'discovered' America or Australia long before any European navigators/explorers.

Unfortunately, this book falls into the category of what publishers call "wa-wa" history. In other words, it ain't true - and the historical reseach is shoddy.

The publishers know it's rubbish. We the public know it's rubbish, but we buy it anyway. And so they publish, because they know we'll buy it and they'll make money. In other words we get the books we deserve. We should be reading decent, reseach-based histories - but we find them rather dull so we don't....

Despite the welter of 5 and 4 star reviews this book has garnered on Amazon, it is important - before you buy it - to note one important fact.

Not ONE single naval historian has given any credence to these claims. Not any European - nor any Chinese - historian. In fact, they all say that the evidence is not there.

While other readers seem to like this book, I have to say that having read other books on global trade and sea voyages in the pre-modern era, I found Menzies style very confusing and it was very difficult to follow his train of thought and how he was using evidence to support his conclusions

Astonishingly, Menzies seems to have ignored two key pieces of Chinese evidence for Zheng He's voyages which list the countries he visited - and don't mention anything that could be America.

In fact Menzies does not read Chinese and there are no direct quotes from any articles or studies written in Chinese. Which is pretty gob-smacking when you think the book is about a Chinese Admiral!

The book may be entertaining, and I am sure Gavin Menzies is a nice bloke etc etc. But that ain't enough. For me his book was full of circular reasoning, speculation, distorted sources and slapdash research.

Or as has already been said - this book may well prove to be the Piltdown Man of literature and should only be classified as fiction.

You may think this is a case of the little man, the amateur, beating the massed hords of the professionals. That is always a very beguiling image, but it's the wrong one to picture.

This book is a triumph for publishing hype and muddled thinking and writing. For that reason we should give it a wide berth. Unless of course you actually like your history as fiction. In which case, be my guest. However, you have been warned....

1421: The Year China Discovered the World
My initial thought on seeing '1421: The Year China Discovered The World,' prominently advertised all over the London tube network, was that it would make a great Christmas present, what with its innovative subject matter, obvious scope for controversy, and stunning visual appearance.

Menzies has apparently put a lifetime of painstaking research into his book, not only retracing the great navigators in their wake when he was a British naval commander, (of which there is a wonderful cornucopia of amusing anecdotes to be told,) but also sharing the mentality of the Chinese explorers, going into unknown and inhospitable territories, what with his experiences in helming some of the first nuclear submarines to prowl the tense seas.

The book is subsequently a joy to read. Being a mariner myself, with a penchant for wreck diving, I was delighted to read an in depth study into the mysterious Bimini Road which has been much discussed in my circles over the years. The
Road gained great notoriety through the interesting theorising of Dr. David Zink, who professed it to be an ancient temple, leading to the lost city of Atlantis. Menzies however, has come up with a much more plausible idea, that will, I hope, be further investigated in the near future.

The essence of '1421: The Year China Discovered The World', is Menzies' schoolboy-like excitement that is relayed constantly throughout the book, causing him many a sleepless night and frantic pacing up and down library halls. The precision, care, and grey hairs that have evidently been invested into his book cannot be underestimated.

Moreover, the book has been designed for ease of accessibility. It is approachable to both the curious amateur, and the skilled academic, with appendices of hard evidence and technical detail for the trained scholar in the library, and witty prose and glorious colour photographs and diagrams for those more suited to a night in with a mug of Horlicks. Nonetheless what remains a constant for all who will read the book is the sense of adventure, in that by just partaking in the reading of the book, one is playing a part in the uncovering of one of the worlds' great mysteries.

To those sceptics out there who believe that Columbus and his entourage were and still are the greatest maritime pioneers to sail the high seas, I say stop, think, and buy a new pair of glasses! The lines of evidence that say otherwise are overwhelming, and even though they may even suggest that Zheng He's great voyages were only the tip of the iceberg, Menzies deserves much credit in what has obviously been a very bold step in publishing history, voicing theories that will no doubt meet some opposition. The author has undoubtedly opened a can of worms, that will irk those who have structured their studies around the fact that the Europeans were the greatest navigators of their times. No doubt can be cast on the fact that they did excel in their fields in some way, however, we must now, with the overwhelming and exciting revelations of '1421 : The Year China Discovered The World', pay homage to the great Chinese explorers of the fifteenth century, and yet again open the world history books for further scrutiny.

I now have no doubt as to what Santa's sack will be full of this year!