1421: The Year China Discovered America – The Great Fleet That Reached America Before Columbus and Circumnavigated the Globe

I enjoyed this immensely! He supports his theories, researching in an attempt to answer questions that conventional views and positions, provide no answers to, nor do they have any desire to, apparently, having long lost the crucial intellectual curiosity and quest for knowledge that made "Discovery" in any field, possible in the first place. Broaden your horizons and enjoy the journey - read this book!

...this book was given to me as a gift, and i purchased another one to do the same, but the book i received was a bit dirty on the (paperback) cover and had gotten wet at some point. It is still readable, and though i haven't finished the first book, i'll give it away and keep the other one...fascinating reading, especially since there now seems to be DNA evidence that the Chinese went everywhere the author suspects...is there a lesson here about dealing with this country?...

This is a both a history lesson and a extremely well documented account that makes a compelling argument that the Chinese were light years ahead of Europe in naval technology and navigational skills and did indeed, discover the new world and the arctic and antarctic. It's also a history lesson of how one man's rule set back a nation and it's energy for centuries and cost China it's global silk road. It's probably more for those who like history without the drama and wars but want to understand the world and consider evidence that what we learned about Christopher Columbus was far from the truth. It's a long book but I learned a great deal from reading it. You will too.

I'm giving this book 4 stars for one main reason - it brings forward a new theory that many other scholars believe *is possible* but does not prove that it *did happen*. However, not enough evidence is available yet to conclude that Gavin's theory is just fiction. I am a graduate student in history and just attended (today) a panel at the annual American Historical Association's meeting in DC. Mr. Menzies and several prominent, scholarly Chinese historians (including John Wills and Valerie Hansen) spoke on a panel about his book. I went to the panel expecting to hear the scholars shoot down Mr. Menzies' book. To some extent, they did. However, when Mr. Menzies stood up and presented new information on DNA and, more importantly, some brand new documents out of Fuijan province in China that came from a Chinese historian there, the academic historians were interested in further investigation (mostly the documents, but each admitted they cannot say the Chinese *didn't* reach the Americas). As someone training to become an academic historian, I will say this about what I got out of today. One of the historians on the panel made quite possibly the best point out of everyone -- something I will remember as I now look more seriously at this theory put before us. There are many, many unexplained pieces of evidence that Mr. Menzies brings forth in this book. For instance, the maps that existed before the European explorers, showing the perfect shape of Africa, South America, the Azores, etc. Now, the Chinese may not have discovered these per say, but until someone else can prove that ANOTHER group of people were the first, or that there is another explanation for these curiosities (because it is agreed the Europeans were usually not the first) -- who are we to heavily criticize Mr. Menzies? After all, we have no explanation of the Chinese artifacts showing up on the West coast. We have no explanation of how South America was perfectly drawn on a 1424 map - maybe the Arabs did it? Fine, go out and try to prove that. So, when you pick up this book you should sit back and look with a critical eye but you also need to look at it like a lot of other historical issues - a possible explanation or theory used to construct a narrative that will connect the past in our minds. As for those who believe the historical narrative they teach you in the public school system, keep in mind that what you learn in school is WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOU TO LEARN! Think about it. (Also, pick up a copy of "Silencing the Past" by Michel Trouillot, who discusses how certain "powerless" people are silenced in history -- in his case he discusses the Haitian Revolution. Reading a book like that gets you to think differently about a theory like the one in this book). What we teach our students in schools today is already missing so much and simply "accepted" narrative anyways. One last thing about this book -- use the companion website to view evidence and all evidence updates. Mr. Menzies mentioned it several times today in his discussion as it contains a lot more and the newest evidence he presented to us today -- [...]

Well written, factual, explains how specific plants and animals came to both the North and South American Continents. Also, after I read this book there was a discovery of ancient Chinese anchors off the Pacific coast. This was a fascinating read for me and I think others will appreciate this book.

The facts is all around us. From the plants to the animals that were seen by Columbus when it visited America. From the sunken ships and the DNA evidence all over the world linking the Natives to Chinese DNA. Even the Native Alaskans look Chinese. The reason we don't see any Native American looking Chinese is because they were wiped off the map when the Europeans showed up. Even Hawaii has a few Natives that look very Chinese. This book is very interesting. Since new evidence are popping up since the released of this book back in 2003, there is a huge wave of evidence pointing to the fact that the Chinese reached America first and the Columbus and Megellen used a map to reach the Americas. Columbus even admitted to using a map in his log. The facts aren't in the book. The facts are all around us. This book brings to attention that history should be re-written. But that will never happened. Of course there will be a bunch of naysayers claiming that the Chinese voyage was a myth. I wouldn't give those people any attention. These are the same people who believes the myth of Bible and how God promised a bunch of Europeans a land called Palestine.

I was aware that author Menzies drew some strong criticisms, but decided to defer focus on that until after I finished the book. Note that the author has a pretty good sized ego, but I found that his weaving in his own personal experiences was entertaining. He uses his "perception of facts" as a springboard for projecting his "theories", and IMO does a reasonable job with qualifying before he leaps, and of course he takes liberties building on all this to add to the big picture. Have to say that what he puts on the table, theories and all, promotes thought and discussion, and that ain't all bad. One angle is to just look at this as the "story of the author", his amazing level of research (Chinese culture, European competition to find & claim new lands, loads of history on same, evolution of maps, stories of the individuals promoted by European history, and on and on). Author was an ambitious, relentless and thought-provoking person, right or wrong. But looking forward to later on checking out the critical thinking applied to that of Menzies.

This fascinating but flawed book expounds the thesis that Chinese fleets explored most of the world decades before Europeans voyaged to the Americas (according to the author, explorers such as Columbus already knew the Americas were there because they had access to maps based on Chinese records). Menzies even argues that Chinese colonies were planted in the Americas, disappearing from view as they mingled with indigenous populations. In his personal quest, Menzies has accumulated a vast amount of circumstantial evidence in support of his theory, attaching to it the interpretations most supportive of his argument. Some of this evidence is persuasive, but much of it is only suggestive. Nonetheless, the sheer weight of evidence will cause most readers to conclude that there is some truth to Menzies' thesis, at least enough to warrant more professional research. That makes one wonder why Western historians have ignored or dismissed the evidence for centuries. And how much history is unknown to us because political decisions dictated the destruction of records, as was the case in Ming China. At the very least, this book should provoke a re-evaluation of Chinese influence on the West before the age of European expansion. Menzies continues to pursue his theory, inviting others to provide supporting evidence through his web site. He could save himself future embarrassment by hiring better fact-checkers from a variety of disciplines who would catch the sometimes glaring errors in this book.