1421 the Year China Discovered America
by Gavin Menzies

This was an absolutely fascinating book which I read this summer. Gavin Menzies, a former British submarine captain, presents his case for the Chinese discovery of America 7 decades before the Europeans did. In fact, Menzies discusses how the Chinese knowledge of these lands migrated into the hands of the Europeans beginning the great age of European exploration. In fact the Chinese treasure fleets discovered, North America, South America, Africa, and Antarctica. Apparently the only place they managed to miss was Europe. Unfortunately, all of the official records of these voyages were destroyed after the fleets returned. This was the time when China went into it’s great period of isolationism and so the ruling Mandarins destroyed all of the records, charts, etc. of areas outside of China to discourage interaction with other lands and peoples. Which is why people especially those in the western world know so little about them. As a result much of Menzies evidence is circumstantial but taken as a whole would be very hard to discount. Menzies combines his knowledge of prevailing winds and currents along with the sailing quality of the Chinese ships of the period to show how the Chinese could have made this voyage. He combines this with cultural and archaeological evidence from the native societies the Chinese encountered. Menzies does an excellent job of composing a time line for the Chinese Treasure Fleet’s movements and discoveries. In the end, Menzies presents a very believable case for the Chinese exploration which takes away very little from the European explorations and in fact does a lot to explain how those came to take place.

Menzies has collected piles of evidence to support his theory. Unfortunately he feels the need to pummel you with this information throughout the book. He keeps flip flopping back and forth between a fascinating historical overview and a 400 page academic paper. There were several points in the book where I was just wanted him to get on with it and tell me what the Chinese did next instead of comparing in excruciating detail the similarities between South American and Chinese lacquer work. Never the less if you can wade through minutia Menzies feels is important the overall story is incredibly fascinating. Menzies obviously expected to encounter a lot more resistance to this idea than he did. Which is understandable. Other historical/archaeological disciplines have been notoriously pigheaded about changing their beliefs about historical evidence despite a preponderance of evidence. Egyptologists are a perfect example. They are still teaching that the Great Pyramid of Giza is a tomb despite a complete lack of evidence that it was ever used as such. Never the less, as a non-academic I would have preferred a little less detail and a little more big picture. Menzies does a good job of presenting the evidence for how he believes the Chinese expedition influenced the cultures they encountered but does not explore alternate possibilities on how these similarities in culture may have come about.

For me some of the most interesting parts of the book were what Dennis McKiernan calls Red Slippers. These are interesting facts dropped in which are tangential to the story being told but not followed up on. For instance, there are legends of Chinese expeditions to South America thousands of years before the 1421 expedition. I would loved to have read more about these legends. Menzies also discusses his belief that the Columbus brothers (Christopher being the more famous) intentionally altered charts and did some other underhanded dealings in getting support for their expeditions. I found this conspiracy theory riveting and yet Menzies only spends about 3 pages discussing it.

Be warned this is not light summer reading. While I highly recommend this book, if you decide to read it make sure you do it when have some time and surplus mental capacity to devote to it. If you want to hear the story but skip too much of the details there is also a very good PBS special based on the book.