Customer Reviews

1434

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If you liked Menzies earlier book - 1421 - you will be disappointed in this follow-up. While 1421 appeared to be based on years of scholarship, much of it naval, by a dedicated and skilled naval officer, obviously pursuing an obsession, 1434 seems to have been dashed off to meet a publisher's deadline. The central thesis is that after Zheng He (hero of 1421) returned to China he was despatched to Europe armed with a complete compendium of all Chinese knowledge to enrich the barbarians. Unfortunately, the book is almost entirely devoid of substantiated facts - instead we are treated to reminiscences of holidays the author took with his wife, meetings with collaborators, trips to restaurants and florrid descriptions of the countryside that the Chinese sailors might have seen had they actually made then journies Menzies proposes. The sense of desperation the author must have had in trying to fill pages with something - anything - is almost palpable. This book is a very different beast to 1421. Admittedly, there are some intriguing findings(Pisanello's sketches of a Mongol face from the 1430s, Toscanelli's observation of comets,for example) that hint at some European contact with China in the early 15th century, but Menzies' thesis is far from convincing. One also gets the feeling that Menzies has deliberately held something back. At the end of 1421 we are decisively informed, after years of study, that the great Chinese treasures fleets were stood down, the information collected destroyed, and Zheng He made to retire. Yet at the beginning of 1434, we are told that within 2 years of their return the fleets were up and running again. Surely, Menzies (and the horde of Chinese scholars who have worked on this saga for decades) must have had some hint of this during his research for 1421? Overall, the book is intriguing yet must be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Menzies has a potentially interesting hypothesis, unfortunately unsupported by much in the way of evidence, other than that of the weak and circumstantial kind. That in itself would be ok if he would front up and admit that the book is a work of speculation and be prepared to critique his own argument. Unfortunately he does not, so the book has a polemical quality with the author clutching at every straw to support himself. To touch on two disciplines I know something about, some of his assertions around astronomy, and also linguistics are just plain wrong, which makes the book heavy going - its hard to relax and pay attention when your teeth are gritted.