Customer Reviews

1421 - the Year China Discovered the World

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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...

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.

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?

A very readable book, but sadly, as noted below, many of the conclusions are quite tenuous and have a hearty dose of speculation. Perhaps the Chinese did travel somewhat extensively, but I sadly cannot trust this book to give me the facts

Gavin Menzies takes what is an interesting subject - the exploration of the world prior to the age of exploration by the Europeans, and turns it into a flight of fancy. He purports that China discovered North and South America, Australia, Antarctica and various points in between in the years 1421-23. Unfortunately, his science and sense of history ranks up there with Hancock and the Chariots of the Gods.

Basically, every thing that we don't understand, rather than being of alien origin or pre-Egyptian origin (theories presented by other fringe historians) must be Chinese. No, don't bother arguing the point. It's all Chinese. And every rumour of some unidentified and never before seen piece of pottery that washed up on a distant shore - that's Chinese too. Every ancient map? Chinese. Every wreck on the ocean floor. Chinese.

Menzies throws out about a million darts in the hopes that one of them sticks. Unfortunately, as even rudimentary research shows, he fluffs, exagerates and possibly even outright lies his way through all the "facts" presented in his book.

Save your money, and buy something else other than this dross.

Menzies has brought a common sense (or in this case a Navigator's sense)to re-examine the widely accepted belief that Columbus discovered America.In a well reasoned and well written book, he asks questions which are pertinent to the foundations of that belief. In so doing, he follows the footsteps of Thor Heyerdahl and Tim Severin in showing that it is possible that factual history may differ from interpreted history. Was Columbus the first to discover America? We already know that the Vikings got to one part of America long before Columbus; so is it possible, as Menzies suggests, that Columbus was yoyaging to a destination already know to him rather than into the unknown?. Menzies may not (yet) have proven his case, but he raises questions that are not so easy to answer. If nothing else, his book is fascinating in providing answers which make a great deal of professional sense.

Yep, I'm going to sit on the fence with this one and give it three stars. The reasons in a for and against format are as follows;

In the positive we get the great enthusiasm of the author for his subject and the fact that he has a naval background has allowed him to capture many aspects of nautical wayfaring quite well and with some verve. Also he has a real passion not only for this part of his subject but a love of old maps and it is this that has such an important part to play in the early phases of the book. Further, the author has gone to a great deal of trouble to research sections of this book though I am concerned whether he has left out aspects that don't fit in with his hypothesis.

What comes to light overall is the great potential for seaborne exploration possessed by the Chinese at this time. And many of the assertions the author makes are not necessarily out of step with traditional thought on waterborne endeavours. Growing up in Australia it's long been known that the Chinese almost certainly made landfall in Northern Australia - certainly trade went on between Indonesian peoples and indigenous peoples of the Australian top end and it's well known that Chinese built ships were ploughing the seas of South East Asia so it's pretty certain they had a rough knowledge of the area. Other areas where it's pretty understandable the Chinese would have gotten is the coast of modern day Alaska. After all, we all know that there were great fleets built for the Mongols to assault Japan with and we know that both Chinese and Korean shipyards were quite capable of building and equipping large fleets. It seems pretty likely that they did hit North America at some point, even if only the western most parts in their search for trading partners.

And given we have the original source materials of people such as Marco Polo and others to verify the amount of trade that went on in the Indian ocean and via trade routes around the Indian subcontinent and onto the Middle East and down the East coast of Africa it's pretty easy to grasp Admiral Zhe getting himself or sending other Chinese fleets of exploration in these directions.

The downsides start coming from the way the author then tries to make out that it was these Chinese fleets - the existence of which is archeologically verifiable - then went about exploring the rest of the planet. His assertions for their exploration of South America and the Caribbean seem a tad fanciful and one passage sticks out in my mind as he points out that there are X number of mounds he feels that if excavated would show up to be Chinese vessels. He then goes on to assert that X just happens to be the number of ships he feels a fleet of the time would lose trying to navigate those seas. The bind he has gotten himself into here, of verifying his own assertion, is obvious to all. And it's these more fanciful conclusions he comes to that damage his case so.

One can only muse that had he done an expose on the voyages of Admiral Zhe and confined himself to a summation of all that was known and more reasonable assertions then he may have been on safer ground but of course it is unlikely he would have caused as much of a stir nor made as much money. I note that there is another book out about how the Chinese discovered America, presumably sales there were fairly good or at least promising so a follow up tome was required.

I really enjoyed the exuberant style of this book. And really enjoyed the way it dangled such juicy possibilities before the reader. There is a lot of good research and much of it backed up in the bibliography and via notes and I just wish I could believe in it with more conviction though I'm still willing to be swayed as the Chinese certainly had the technology over their European counterparts in many areas at this stage of the game.

I bought this book as a gift for my father who is very interested in history and expanding his knowledge on all subjects. He enjoyed it very much and said that it presented a side of history he'd never known about before.

This book explores the talents of the Chinese, a nation that for many years has been hidden. Few books are written about China's history, but Gavin has pieced together the events of China discovery and exploration of the world. No doubt this book will challenge many people's ideas about early exploration, but at the the same time enough facts are given to substiantiate this tremendous effort of discovery. This is a well written book that is easy to read, but could benefit from additional charts and explanations.

An extraordinary compilation of years of detailed, world-wide, painstaking research. Simply outstanding. Mr.Menzies' research
will no doubt start some wonderful archeological adventures to
find more items left behind by the Chinese fleets in various
global locations. And high school history texts will have to be
re-written! Mr. Menzies, thank you for taking us on a most interesting journey.