1421: The Year China Discovered America (P.S.)

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas." When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. And they colonized America before the Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that have since fed and clothed the world.

It is tempting to dismiss Menzies as being simply yet another in a long line of authors who have proposed extremely ambitious revisions to traditional history based upon much speculation and little solid evidence. We have all seen books that offer the true stories behind the Pyramids and Great Sphinx of Egypt, the Holy Grail, King Arthur, Atlantis, and a host of similar topics - books that promise much but soon fade from sight. Yet, Menzies does outline a large body of evidence in support of his theory. Perhaps most crucial are old maps dating from the 15th and early 16th Centuries which appear to show in persuasive detail coastlines of the Americas, Australia, and Antarctica long before European ships reached those shores. Menzies believes that these maps originated in the Chinese explorations, the information passed on to foreign contacts even while it was being obliterated at home. (Other amateur revisionist historians have sought to explain such maps by resorting to ancient sea-kings in a pre-Ice Age world or even to extraterrestrial visitors; Menizies' theory seems almost sedate in comparison.) In support of this idea, he quotes from contemporary accounts that European explorers finding "new" lands admitted that they were guided by existing maps. Menzies' partiality towards maps and questions of navigation is undoubtedly grounded in his background as a former commander of a Royal Navy nuclear submarine. The experience gave him, as he describes it, a "periscope's eye" view of lands seen from the sea, valuable in interpreting what might be shown on a centuries-old chart.

There is a broad array of other evidence mentioned by Menzies: inscribed stones at numerous locations around the world, the supposed presence of Asiatic chickens and African coffee in the Americas before Columbus, the reported growth of American maize in southeast Asia before Europeans provided a link across the Pacific, Chinese-style structures in various places, mysterious old shipwrecks which seem to be Chinese junks (including one in a sandbar along California's Sacramento River), possible Chinese colonies in New England and Portugese colonies in Puerto Rico well before Columbus ... The list of presumed evidence appears endless.

However - there is always a "however" in these things - can we be confident that Menzies has properly evaluated and presented this seemingly overwhelming body of information? Footnotes are rather sparse, something which must make the careful reader cautious. By Menzies' own acknowledgement, the validity of some pieces of his evidence has already been strongly challenged in the past: the stone tower of Newport in Narragansett Bay, the controversial Vinland Map, and the mysterious underwater "roads" of Bimini. Menzies has stated that additional detailed supporting material will appear on his Internet website, but as yet I have seen little there of this promised data.

Given the bold nature of Menzies' proposal and the broad scope of information presented, it seems inevitable that at least some of Menzies' evidence will be shown to be in error. But might enough of it eventually be proven correct to validate his ideas? There are a number of paths of research suggested by Menzies for further pursuit, including archaeological excavation of the Sacramento River wreck and of mounds on the beaches of Bimini, DNA analysis of plants, animals, and peoples in many places ordinarily presumed isolated from one another, caron-14 dating of artifacts sitting on museum shelves, and so forth. Perhaps, the thesis of the great expedition of 1421 will be found to be too narrowly phrased, while the broader matter of pre-Columbian contact with the Americas will be buttressed. Quite possibly some of the more ambitious Chinese exploits described by Menzies, such as a voyage around the north of Greenland and the exploration of the north coast of Siberia, will be pruned away, leaving a more solid central core intact. Or maybe in the end the whole thesis will be discarded. But before that happens, I would hope that a serious look be given to Menzies' ideas and the underlying evidence. The Chinese of the 15th Century, we now understand, certainly did have vessels capable of long ocean voyages, and we should not be so Eurocentric to preclude the notion that East Asian explorers could have made their own wide-ranging explorations. And that detailed information on those old maps had to come from somewhere, after all. Was it more than only imagination and luck?

"1421: The Year China Discovered America" makes for a fascinating reading experience with much in it worthy of further thought, but I would also recommend to the prospective reader that caution be exercised against taking everything at face value. At the same time, the reader would be well-advised to keep an open mind to the possibility that the ancient Chinese at least briefly knew far more of the external world than we had ever realized and that this information helped kindle the flames of European exploration.


Impressive body of research, exciting visit to the 15th Cent   October 27, 2003
Atheen M. Wilson (Mpls, MN United States)
109 out of 154 found this review helpful

Impressive body of research and exciting visit to the world of the 15th Century.

I have read one other book on this topic, namely about pre-European global discovery, and that was Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings by Professor Hapgood. Since I was rather disappointed by that author's conclusions, I almost anticipated an equally disappointing experience with Mr. Menzies' book. Hapgood discussed the Piri Reis map, a portalan map of the known world rediscovered in a collection in Turkey. He and his students subjected the work to a thorough study by applying modern mapping techniques and non-Euclidean geometry. While I had no complaints about their scientific research on the map-I'd taken some cartography in conjunction with my degree in geology-I was somewhat taken aback by their conclusion that the map proved the existence of the "lost continent of Atlantis!" It is a fair jump from deciding that a pre-Columbian map portrays an accurate visual image of the coasts of the world to proving the existence of a fabled civilization. There should be other more reasonable explanations of the phenomenon tested before we resort to the Sherlock Holmes theorem (when all probable explanations are disproved, then the only remaining explanation is the improbable.)

Menzies' work, 1421: The Year China Discovered America, while it also challenges accepted doctrine regarding the European initiation of world discovery, is a far more satisfying work. Like Hapgood and his students, Gavin Menzies subjects old maps to a thorough examination by modern techniques and approaches the project with a better personal vita. While not himself a professor of history, he is a well read and well traveled individual. Furthermore his life experiences qualify him far better to undertake this project than Dr. Hapgood's did. He served in the Royal Navy from 1953 to 1970, commanding a submarine, the HMS Ronqual, from 1968 to 1970. During this time he experienced the same natural phenomenon of the world's oceans and became familiar with the idiosyncracies of maps and cartography in practice. He also lived in China for two years before WWII and has returned many times since then. He displays an obvious bias in favor of Chinese culture and its potental, but not unjustly if his data are to be trusted.

Probably the most impressive thing about the book is the author's very methodical approach to his subject. He begins by giving a history of the Chinese state at the time he proposes produced the maps, discussing the social background that provided the impetus to world discovery and the reason the great voyages were not followed by extensive colonization as they were later by similar European ventures. He also notes why the documentation of these voyages is so scant in China and uses what information there is as a starting point for his own pursuit of external evidence. Describing the careers of commanders like Zheng He, Yang Qing, Zhou Man, Hong Bao and Zhou Wen, he sets the stage for his own research into their adventures. Following each of the ancient commanders in their proposed missions and capitalizing on his own experience as a captain of an ocean going vessel, he charts the nature-driven course these ancient pilots would have been encouraged or forced to take. At each probable landing point, he searched for and occasionally found indications of ancient contact: in material remains like porcelains, votives, and inscriptions, in the mythology of aboriginals, in wreck sites of non-European vessels, and so on.

The most impressive piece of this type of assessment is that of the Bimini "road." This underwater formation has had many attempted explanations, most of them total fantasy. They have been described as "temples" of a lost civilization, as "roads" from the lost continent of Atlantis, as odd geological formations, as concretions remaining from some former sea life, etc. That they might have been laid down by sailors for the very practical purpose of beaching their ships for repair is the most logical explanation I've heard yet! Menzies is even able to describe how the beaching procedure would have been done and why that dictated that the "road" be designed just as it is.

Unlike Hapgood and his students, this author examines not just the Piri Reis of 1513 but several of the other anomalous early maps in pursuing the voyages of these amazing captains: the Kangnido world map of 1402, the Pizzigano chart of 1424, Fra Mauro's planisphere of 1459, the Cantino world chart of 1502, the Waldseemuller map of 1507, and the Jean Rotz world map of 1542. While many of these date to after the European voyages of discovery, this author-and others as well-believe that they are copies of originals that are older. It is believed that the European understanding of map making and of assessing position, particularly longitude, was not adequate enough to have produced such precise descriptions of foreign coasts. The author's explanation of why this is true and why and how the Chinese were so far ahead of their European counterparts is detailed and interesting.

Menzies' style is colorful and descriptive, reading almost like a novel. At times one is as lost in the narrative of the voyages as one is in the history of the events and the logic of the author's arguments. I found it difficult to put down and read it in about two days. The bibliography is quite extensive and includes mostly books in English or in English translation. Some are a little old-Aldridge's "Cairo" for one (1970) though it's a fascinating discussion of the city-but even some of these are germane to the subject. The technical discussions might be beyond the junior high level reader, but the story certainly is not. I think that some of this should be taught in high school world history classes, since it shows that the age of discovery was a global phenomenon, that the world may have been "ready" for discovery, that it was "in the air" so to speak and inevitable. That the Chinese could explore the world without antagonizing the foreign people they met along the way makes one wonder if the violence of the European ventures abroad were truly "inevitable" outcomes of a highly technological society confronting a less advanced culture as sometimes said. An interesting book and worth a space on your shelf.


Is Gavin Menzies to be taken seriously?   January 8, 2003
83 out of 266 found this review helpful

In an age when writers are seeking to make the top dollars, historical accuracy can be compromised for the sake of a good story. "Pop History", as some call it, surely make for a good read if the reader is willing to suspend disbelief; yet these stories often offer up a few slices short of the whole pizza pie.
The is irrefutible proof that the Imperial Treasure fleet was real, that it travelled around the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and that it was disassembled around the year 1421. These facts, in combination with what Mr. Menzies believes to be proof of a Chinese pressence in the Americans, lead him to put forth several interesting theories. Revisionist Historians, ex: Howard Zinn, have been searching for ways to discredit Columbus's discoveries, and Menzies's book seems to follow along with the current trends of thinking. Eastern, rather than western, settlement of the "new world" would render everything Each AMerican learned in High School about American History,and face it folks isnt that the farthest that most of our fellow countrymen choose to pursue this path, wrong.
if it were true.
Although Mr. Menzies can tell a good story, he was unable to convince me of the soundness of his argument, however hard he did try.


A big hoax by a charming liar   March 22, 2004
Diogenes (long beach, wa United States)
82 out of 95 found this review helpful

Gavin Menzies is a charming, seductive, inventive story teller, but his book is just an elaborate literary hoax, and belongs on the fiction list.

Gavin claims he has real, tangible evidence. Not true. Just check out for yourself some of the sources he cites. His own sources do not support the claims he makes.

For example, at pp 201-2(hardcover) Gavin writes of a pulley "for hoisting sails" found on the beach at Neahkahnie, Oregon, about 60 miles south of me. I drove down there and spoke with the curator of the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. He had talked with Gavin in 2002 and Wayne told Gavin the pulley had already been carbon dated (in 1993) to 1590; and, the wax was beeswax for candles, prized and common cargo for the Spanish trade galleons that traveled between the Philippines and the west coast of North America, on a regular basis, between 1564 and 1815. The pulley was from one of those Manila galleons. In his book (page520) Gavin lists as a source "Tales of the Neahkahnie Treasure", prepared by the Nehalem Valley Historical Society Treasure Committee, 1991, published by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. It clearly states (p5) the beeswax, not as Gavin states "paraffin wax" a hydrocarbon product, had been carbon dated to 1681. Further, a pollen study of the beeswax had revealed its source was northern Luzon in the Philippines where there was a certain variety of shrub the bees visited for pollen.

Gavin ignores the inconvenient facts, hides them from the reader, and writes as if he is just waiting for the lab to confirm the finding of some possible real Chinese evidence. It's not possible, as Gavin well knows, the lab work has long since been done and it does not fit his time frame.

For another example consider the Bimini road story. Gavin devotes a short chapter to this (pp265-277). The Bimini road is a long standing hoax in its own right. Gavin claims all the experts agree it is man made. Not true. He only cites one "expert", David D. Zink, who was not a scientist, rather a former English teacher, a Cayce discple, intrigued with megalithic (big rock) structures and with the origins of myths. All the real experts know it is a natural geologic formation. Just by coincidence I noticed a timely article by Dr. Eugene A. Shinn, a geologist with USGS, in the Jan/Feb 2004 Skeptical Inquirer, pp38-44; "Natural submerged beachrock off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas has been deemed a remmant of Atlantis by the faithful since the 1960s. In spite of geological research demonstrating the stones are natural, 'true believers' continue to be drawn by the strong 'force field'." Take a look at that article and see if you can still believe the nonsense Gavin writes.

I could go on and on. Open any page and you will encounter nonsense. Gavin cites sources to be sure, but, if you take the time to read the claimed source material, you will invariably find it doesn't support what he writes. Gavin is desperate for some real, tangible evidence, and he simply ignores or misstates his own source material, and writes whatever he wishes, whatever he thinks may convince the reader his grand fantasy is true.

The book is a hoax and belongs on the fiction list.