1421: the year china discovered america summary

The reason History is a social science is partly. When it returned in 10/1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political & economic chaos. It's rare that I would waste space blasting a book. Well, the Chinese did, and in great detail, and the maps were then copied or made by some of the Europeans who were sailing with the Chinese fleets. What a story this is! See my review in my general account on GR: Former British submarine commander and amateur historian. Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies (14 August 1937 – 12 April 2020) was a British author and retired submarine lieutenant-commander who has written books promoting claims that the Chinese sailed to America before Columbus. From time to time, this reviewer comes across a publication so crackpot that I hardly know where to start in reviewing it here. I am convinced. I did find it most interesting. Hoo boy, what can I say. It seemed like an interesting concept: China sent out huge ships to bring back treasure and knowledge, and just happened to find America 70 years before Christopher Columbus. Perhaps the most substantial is Robert Finlay's review "How Not to (Re)Write World. This book is heavily mired in controversy, and here's why. They did not discover anything new or go anywhere that wasn't well known to themselves or to pilots they recruited along the way. Check it out if you want to shake your faith in the primacy of European world domination. (TV Movie 2004). Many of us grew up being taught that Christopher Colombus “discovered” America when he first set sail with the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria in 1492. (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. 1421 : the year China discovered the world / Gavin Menzies Bantam Press London 2002. This documentary examines the controversial theory that a Chinese Ming Dynasty fleet, led by Zheng He, sailed past the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Atlantic to discover the Americas, decades before Christopher Columbus. Fantasy. I'd rather just drop a book unworthy of finishing and move on to a new one. This is a completely enthralling book dedicated to a really ballsy thesis--that the treasure fleets of the Ming Dynasty charted most of the world, including North and South America as well as Siberia and Antarctica, in 1421. One of the animals he mentions the Chinese discovered in South America was a Mylodon?. Ancient transatlantic voyages : [book summary] / Christine Pellech; Gavin Menzies, 1421 : the year China discovered America / Stephen C. Jett; Appendix : some reviewers' opinions of Gavin Menzies's 1421 / Stephen C. Jett; 1421 author replies / Gavin Menzies; Robert Schoch, Voyages of the pyramid builders / … Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published It seemed like an interesting concept: China sent out huge ships to bring back treasure and knowledge, and just happened to find America 70 years before Christopher Columbus. It is possible that he had a Chinese chart or charts on board, guess we will never know. This book is heavily mired in controversy, and here's why. ... "The Year China Discovered America" is a nice tease. Do you remember Erich von Daniken? 1421: The Year China Discovered America? Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. First, it makes an extraordinary claim: that Chinese explorers in their 1421-23 exploration didn't just map the Indian Ocean, as generally accepted, but also visited West Africa, both coasts of South America, the Caribbean, and even left colonies in New England and Greenland. Menzies writes, for example: You might have that certain relative in your family who is affable enough, but has some really weird ideas that he loves to go on about. 1421, the year China discovered America?.. Gavin Menzies, a former submarine commander in the British navy and amateur historian, argues in this book that between 1421 and 1423 squadrons from Zheng He's fleets reached the Americas prior to the Europeans. The TV series has been made into a home video, "1421: The Year China Discovered America?" Its mission was "to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" & unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. great book about the discoveries the Chinese made of the new world and other places like Tasmania long before Columbus sailed looking for the new route to India. After extensive research I found it to be extinct. Summaries. All it has is an extremely interesting hodge-podge of facts, figures, intriguing maps, unexplored wrecks and spotty journal entries (most of the accounts of the voyage were destroyed when the explorers returned home to find that the Empire had turned inwards). Ok, so this was really interesting and he had a pretty good basic thesis. Every December, as we wrap up our annual Goodreads Reading Challenge, we ask our book-loving colleagues a simple yet incredibly tough... On 3/8/1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Someone might have more information on this. Second, since much of this hasn't been sufficiently researched, it doesn't have the goods to back a lot of it up. His compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators to prove that the Chinese had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years ahead of the Europeans. Sadly it became a long, non-stop series of suppositions along the lines of Chariots of the Gods. I don't think the Chinese went to the Americas or England in 1421, but most people agree that sometime in the past 40000 or so years (opinions differ a lot) there were migrations from Asia to the Americas. They never went eastward into the Pacific ocean, nor did they round the cape of Africa. Add the first question. If you are fascinated by history, by the methods of historians, by sleuthing across centuries, and by the opportunities still flourishing for an amateur to think out of the box----you may play this video often each time seeing something new. How Menzies got this published, I can't imagine. Life is short and time is a scarce resource. China was the world's greatest maritime power in the early 15th century, raising the theory that the Chinese discovered America 71 years before Columbus set sail. All in all, it's a very interesting book. The TV series has been made into a home video, "1421: The Year China Discovered America?" For the sake of this review, let's call him "Uncle Gavin." We’d love your help. (1.) 1421: The Year China Discovered the World Gavin Menzies Published by Bantam Press, London “…On the 8th of March, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. All the European explorers were following charts that the Chinese had created in the early 1420s. 1421; The Year China Discovered America By: Gavin Menzies ... Lost in China's long isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. Don't read this. I was about two chapters in when I really started to think about the logic of this and decided to do a little research. Lost in China's long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus & had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. The problem is that the author offers very little proof for this provocative theory. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Title: In 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies presents evidence that China not only discovered North and South America before Columbus was born, but also rounded the Cape of Good Hope, explored the North and South Poles, discovered Australia, and circumnavigated the world, visiting every continent except Europe. The voyages he references were well recorded and. by Harper Perennial (NYC). This documentary examines the controversial theory that a Chinese Ming Dynasty fleet, led by Zheng He, sailed past the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Atlantic to discover the Americas, decades before Christopher Columbus. 9780553815221 2 - 1421 : The Year China Discovered the World By Gavin Menzies. It is hard to explain the awfulness of this book fact-wise(the fact that there is actually a web site dedicated to to doing this should tell you something). Read on, intrepid reader, and be amazed as the author sidesteps issues which threatens his ideas, or completely ignores them! Not the least convincing, and what a good deal of the book focuses on, are the maps that many of the "great" European explorers used that show the areas that they are setting out to discover. Welcome back. This FAQ is empty. For the American market it was published as 1421: The Year China Discovered America, New York, William Morrow, 2003. Perhaps the most substantial is Robert Finlay's review "How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America" in the Journal of World History, June 2004, where Finlay shows that there are no "lost years" in Ming dynasty sailing, and so Menzies' book is completely without foundation. I bought this book December 2006 on Indonesia Book Fair. Turns out there are very few people that agree with this book. I gave it one star for the few things I actually found interesting, but given the rest of the book it makes me want to double check even those. (as Dr Esmond Bradley Martin). Yes, that's right the sweet potato. Eight years after he made controversial headlines with his first American history book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America," which sold more than a … He had quite a story to tell, too. While this book presents itself as a revelation, it lacks citations or footnotes or much evidence for that matter to support such wild claims. After extensive research I found it to be extinct. I am not some jaded professor who believes in the current historical status quo, but to make such claims without good scholarly follow-through just begs for it to be debunked. See the book's website for more detail (and shameless promotion). There are books that break new ground with bombshell research and there are books that spellbind us with the skill of their deception. I suppose I should feel bad that I gave up on this book, but I don't. Most records of their journeys were destroyed. Little research ; pbs home Video, `` 1421: the Year China Discovered America? yet! 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