1421 - the Year China Discovered the World [Import] [Paperback]

Gavin Menzies (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 649 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; New Ed edition (November 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553815229
• ISBN-13: 978-0553815221
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,150,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for all history buffs, June 27, 2003

By 

Newton Ooi (Phoenix, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1421 - the Year China Discovered the World (Hardcover)

This is a great book for many reasons. First, it is a great adventure story. The author takes the reader along the voyages of China's great treasure fleets in the 1420s as they sailed around the world. Second, it clearly illustrates how history depends on who is around to tell it, and not on the truth. Third, it is a great detective story. The author shows how different clues have to be pieced together to create a coherent story. And last, it is a perfect example of how achievements are easily forgotten or erased from memory. The flow of the text is good; there are enough references in the text to keep it honest, but not so much as to break up the reading.

The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is that there should be more pictures and diagrams explaining the various sailing and navigation terms; like how latitude is measured via stars, how a ship sails into the wind, how distance is measured on a sailing vessel, etc...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book but there are other perspectives out there, December 12, 2007

By 

M. Aitcheson (Beijing, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1421 - the Year China Discovered the World (Paperback)

Overall I found this book a very good read. The structure and story are very well thought out. At some stages I questioned the evidence discussed and was dissapointed by the corresponding web site that has not been updated for quite some time. For a different perspective to I would recommend Edward L. Dreyer's "Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433" as it shed's light on areas where Gavin Menzies skirts over.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pure fantasy, almost as good as the Piltdown man history, April 7, 2005

By 

F. J. Azpiroz (Den Haag, Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1421: the Year China Discovered the World (Hardcover)

After reading through most of the book, I still wonder why most reviewers give 4 or 5 stars to this book. Obviously, it is clearly a good reason for that: you must believe everything you read, otherwise you find cracks in the storyline, and the cracks widen to be the St Andreas fault... In fact, the author does not know who was the first captain that travelled around the world, the answer is Juan Sebastian Elcano in his ship the Victoria.

I become interested in the book, as I am a geologist by background, and have history as a hobby. In fact, I have Basque ancestors and have lived in South America. My mother in law is from Güimar (the place of the "Chinese" pyramid in Canary Islands.)

Every single fact that I could check (extinct mylodon, Chinese people living in Maracaibo before Alonso de Ojeda, Güimar pyramid) is clearly a hoax. The author's hoax has been exposed in many reviews, websites and publications, so it is time to move this book to the "fiction" section. Can I receive the money that I wasted on this book back?