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About the Author

Paul Chiasson is the author of The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America, a book that explores the possibility that early Chinese explorers settled in the Cape Dauphin area of Cape Breton years before Columbus made his famous voyage. He lives in Toronto.

Works by Paul Chiasson

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Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Chiasson, Paul
Gender
male
Nationality
Canada
Places of residence
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
Washington, D.C., USA
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Education
Yale University
Occupations
architect
academic
Short biography
Paul Chiasson is a Yale-educated architect whose expertise is the history and theory of religious architecture. He was born on Cape Breton Island and is a direct descendent of the Acadians who were among the first European settlers in the New World. He has taught at Yale, at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. and at the University of Toronto. Chiasson’s discovery of the remains of an ancient Chinese settlement on Cape Breton Island is a direct result of his ancestral interest in the island’s history and of his unique ability to understand the unusual architectural forms that the ruins represented – remains that had been previously misunderstood or overlooked.

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Reviews

The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America by Paul Chiasson

For so many years, North Americans have been taught that Columbus was the discoverer of "The New World" when this could not be furthest from the truth. Vikings of the ninth century were crossing from Europe to Greenland and Iceland fairly regularly. The Vikings, in fact, established a colony on the northern end of Newfoundland. Chiasson presents his information that the Chinese actually settled on the northern end of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Columbus had known about the Island of Seven Cities twenty years before he "found" the New World" so obviously somebody had been there long before him and his ilk. Chiasson believes that the earliest inhabitants of Cape Breton Island, besides the native Amerindian populations, were Chinese explorers. Gavin Menzies in his book, 1424, comes to the same conclusions about the Chinese; they established colonies in many different parts of the world.

I found this book very exciting and captivating. Chaisson tells this fascinating story with an eye to building suspense and intrigue along the way until he can successfully get the reader to agree that the Chinese cold be responsible for settling in Cape Breton Island.

Anybody looking for some historical detective reading along the sme lines as Menzies would appreciate this book. I found it captivating.

Happy Reading,
… (more)
 
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jcprowe | 2 other reviews | Sep 8, 2014 |
OK. Another mystic book that seems to totally ignore any facts that contradict the authors views. Still, and interesting tale.
 
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Hawken04 | 2 other reviews | Oct 23, 2013 |
This is a non-fiction that reads like a novel. The author took us on a personal journey of discovery where he played history detective on a ancient ruin the size of a shopping mall located on Cape Breton. Most of his research on the origin of the ruin was done at the Toronto Reference Library. Half of the book is on the early European explorations of the Maritime focusing on Cape Breton. This work contains all the intrigues of a treasure hunt. The book is surprisingly well written from someone that is not a professional writer or historian.… (more)
 
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iFool | 2 other reviews | Aug 23, 2007 |

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Works
3
Members
215
Popularity
#103,625
Rating
½ 3.6
Reviews
3
ISBNs
8

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