1421: The Year China Discovered America

The teaching of history is, as von Clausewitz said of war, the extension of politics by other means. Different nations teach their own history from their own viewpoint. Even if that history extends beyond their own borders, the story usually reflects the role of each country in the development of the world. So works of trans-national history are comparatively unusual, and even more rarely do they look beyond narrow national viewpoints.

So a book that claims that Chinese treasure fleets explored the world's oceans, circumnavigated the globe 100 years before Magellan and made landfall in the Americas some 75 years before Columbus is bound to ruffle some feathers. Menzies' 1421 does just that. His thesis is that the extravagance of the show more early Ming emperors, which culminated in the building of the Forbidden City, the completion of the Great Wall, and the commissioning of a massive trading fleet, numbering hundreds of ships, caused a subsequent emperor to retrench the nation's activity, to purge the archives of all records and to retreat into isolationism, leaving Portuguese explorers tantalising clues and charts showing distant lands which they then went out and "discovered".

Given that China had trade links all over South-East Asia, the coast of India and down the east coast of Africa, this seems plausible. The big problem is the lack of firm evidence. And also given that (in Menzies' account) all the main Chinese records were destroyed, this leaves him to pick up scraps from a range of other sources, piecing a story together from fragments. But this is always going to lead to confirmation bias; any evidence will be assessed for how it fits into the grand narrative, rather than looking at the evidence in isolation. Menzies lists a large number of academic institutions that helped him in his researches; what they thought of the outcome is another matter.

The style of the writing does not help. Menzies initially started writing a world travelogue, of which the central idea behind 1421 was just one part. This came to the attention of an enterprising publisher who saw the possibilities in a book based on the account of the treasure fleets. Menzies re-wrote that segment of the book with the aid of a ghost writer; but he admitted that he himself was no writer. He uses some of the usual tropes of the pseudo-science writer - "this proves that the Chinese must have...", "the only possible conclusion is that..." and so on. Even if his evidence were sound, the book presents subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) suggestions that it is not, simply because of the style. Interestingly, he twice cites Erich von Däniken, though not as any sort of reliable source, but rather as the only other person to think such-and-such a piece of evidence is significant, "and that can't be true!".

Of course, if his thesis is true, then all we will have are fragments which need to be pieced together. But this runs the risk of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. China has an extensive history; it was the world's first superpower. But if this claim was viable, would it not be the Chinese who would be making it?

Menzies died in 2020. He published further books making more fantastical claims about the role of China in medieval European history; and set up a website asking members of the public to add to the body of his evidence. This has been replaced by a very slick site for a "1421 Foundation" which has picked up this particular ball and is running with it. This is a shame, because it all now smacks of commercialisation and sensation; certainly, any serious historian or archaeologist coming to the field of medieval Chinese naval history might well be put off by all the trappings. And that would be a shame; in a world where narrow national interests are being exploited for political gain, any trans-national or global perspective is helpful in trying to give a sense of balance. But without better evidence, this book and its successors are not helping. show less

Wow. The preponderance of evidence not only turns accepted European history and world history on its head, but also makes one wonder about the question the author poses as to whether or not we could be speaking Chinese now, rather than English, and have Buddhism as the dominant world religion, as well as my own personal question : did someone perhaps decide that the world was better off allowing Europe to take another three centuries to figure out what the Chinese already knew?
Given the cruelty of the conquests we saw by the Europeans, versus the kindness with which visited populations were treated by the Chinese fleet, it seems safe to predict that history might have turned out quite differently for the human race had that information show more of how to navigate the world remained in benevolent hands. show less

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. For the sake of this review, let's call him "Uncle Gavin." Uncle Gavin is harmless, and charms your friends, but he has one pet topic that you try to steer him away from. Before you know it, he's started asking your friends who they think discovered the world and after a short time, the friend's nods and smiles go from sincerely interested to polite to barely hanging on, and they're looking around desperately for someone to rescue them from this conversation.

Uncle Gavin wrote this book. His premise sounds interesting, and perhaps sane, if far-fetched: he claims that the Chinese sailed essentially the show more entire world in 1421-23 and made maps of such voyages that were later used to guide the Portuguese and Spanish explorers who "discovered" America and other parts of the world. Why this has been a hidden fact for so long: the Chinese burned nearly every record of the voyages, stopped exploration, and basically forgot about the whole thing over the centuries. Why Uncle Gavin is the only person to have figured this out: he used to captain submarines and therefore knows how ocean currents work and can read a nautical chart. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

In any case, I was willing to go along with him at first, but it became apparent pretty quickly that things were spiraling out of control. I rarely make notes on audio books, but I found myself frantically scribbling things down when I was listening to this one. Things like:

"Just because Verrazzano compared some lighter-skinned Indians and their manner of dress to the "Eastern" style doesn't mean that they are descended from his [Menzies'] imaginary pregnant concubines that were put ashore from his imaginary overcrowded voyages."

I was going to list more, but as I look at that one, I think it sums up everything. Look, it's an interesting idea that the Chinese could have sent an enormous fleet out to see what there was out there, and that they could have drawn up a map of everything, and then decided to close their borders and give up on the outside world, and that the maps could have ended up in the hands of the European explorers, and that those explorers could have found knick-knacks that were Chinese and people who might have been descended from Chinese people who ended up there long-term one way or another. But if you're going to tell me, Uncle Gavin, that the Chinese took out 40 or 50 ships which were wrecked in various places and stayed and lived there, you're going to have to come up with some physical evidence. Wrecked ships off India, or eastern Africa, or Australia simply do not prove that Chinese people built the Bimini Road in the Caribbean to get their ships on land for repairs or had a settlement on Greenland (I am not kidding. I wish I were kidding.).

If this were half as long and half as crazy, it might be worth a perusal. As it is, run from this book. Read Foucault's Pendulum, which features the same sort of wild connect-the-dots game and also has going for it that it is fiction.

PS - It turns out that Menzies has also published 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance. I imagine that he is now deep into the writing of 1468: The Year China Traveled to the Moon and Discovered Life and 1498: The Year China Invented Synthetic Life and Created the Spice Girls. show less

According to Menzies, it wasn’t the explorers of the western powers that ‘discovered’ the world, it was the Chinese and they did it in 1421 way before anyone else. Hence, the title of this book that somebody bought me for something some time ago.

Thought I’d better read it while I was in China and I did get through it but it wasn’t exactly an easy read. While I was reading it, I met two other people who said they’d given up halfway through. By the time I was halfway through, I knew why.

Within the first few chapters of the book, Menzies presents some good reasons why it was the Chinese who discovered the entire globe and mapped it. He then goes on to present some more fanciful evidence before concluding the main body of text show more with an explanation of how the Chinese knowledge of the globe formed the basis for the European exploration that we know so well.

The most controversial piece of the argument is a very strong argument indeed for the fact that Columbus actually discovered squat all, let alone America. He was simply following in the footsteps of others and the Chinese had even established colonies in North America by the time he blundered into the Caribbean. Can’t see any North Americans changing their school syllabuses anytime soon though!

While the book is, for the most part, very well argued. It really does go on a bit. By the time you get to halfway, you’re thinking “Okay, okay, I believe you, I believe you.” But Menzies drags it out for the rest of the book before adding a long postscript. And as if that weren’t enough, he then nails on an appendix of “evidence” that is, at 150 pages, longer than many a good novel. Oh, and don’t forget the website which he refers to very often. Clearly, this is a man on a mission and good luck to him.

It didn’t change my world. I don’t really care who ‘discovered’ what. There were people in most of the places the Chinese went before they got there. But hats off to the Chinese though – more people in the west should be more aware of their cultural achievements. What I did get from the book is a good appreciation of just how amazing their culture was for its time. It blew British ‘culture’ (if you’ll forgive me for using the word) away completely, and a visit to the Shanghai Museum confirmed that these people were incredibly inventive. After four days in Shanghai though, I can’t help wondering where it all went. show less

This is book is so horridly bad. Now maybe the Chinese went farther than they are recorded to have gone, maybe they accidentally washed up on the shores of the Americas. But this book is not the answer. Menzies mistranslated the size of Zheng He's fleet. One of Zheng He's admirals was back in China when he was supposed to be discovering the world. Menzies overestimates the speed of the fleets. The weird things Menzies comes up with: comfort women on the ships, sprout growing on the ships, etc. The funniest is the weird, unsubstantiated way they were supposed to come up with longitude. Menzies misuses Australian legends and information. Menzies messes up maps. Really, the portolan Antillia and Satanzes looks nothing like the Caribbean. show more Menzies misinterprets Dieppe maps. Menzies has no clue how to interpret DNA. Menzies has no clue what the Newport Tower was (hint, a windmill from the 1600s).

In the end, this book is just poppycock. All you need to know about Gavin Menzies you can find by watching National Geographic's documentary 1421: The Year China Discovered America (which you can find online). It presents his theory and then demolishes it completely. Watch especially at the end when the interviewer confronts Menzies on his misinterpretations, quoting the actual documents Menzies uses as proof and showing they in fact contradict Menzies. His face is priceless. That's all you need to know about Gavin Menzies and his theories. show less

It's rare that I would waste space blasting a book. Life is short and time is a scarce resource. I'd rather just drop a book unworthy of finishing and move on to a new one. This time, though, I think 1421 merits further explanation because of the sensational success it has experienced worldwide.

Simply put, 1421 is junk history posing as "real history." Gavin Menzies has spun a fantastical and interesting tale out of the very real events surrounding the massive Chinese treasure fleets of 1421. His thesis--that the Chinese discovered the New World in the 1420s, mapped it, and that it was their maps that European explorers used when sailing for the New World (including, he argues, Columbus).

Built by a Ming emperor to gather in tribute show more from the ends of the Earth, the fleet was one of the last acts of imperial hubris. Shortly after it set sail, the emperor died. His son, in replacing his father's policies, had the fleets destroyed upon their return, along with records gathered during the voyage. Starting with that sparse introduction, Menzies proceeds to gather bits and pieces of evidence stretching from China itself to the Indian subcontinent, from the Congo to Patagonia and beyond, and levies the evidence to tell a tale of the massive Chinese fleet charting the New World the greater part of a century before Columbus set sail in 1492.

It is an extremely interesting and, if it were true, a ground breaking discovery and thesis. Perhaps it is true. But likely, it is not.

As I started reading it, the first question that came to mind for me was this: in the almost six centuries since these events happened, why has no one else suggested that the Chinese arrived first? Menzies explanation is that historians generally lack the skill set necessary to uncover the truth, a skill set that he has as a former captain in the British Navy. Unlike most historians, Menzies argues, he can read a chart, understand what he's looking at, and glean from these 15th century charts things that no historian would otherwise notice.

Yeah. It's a little bit of a stretch. I would be surprised to find that no historian has ever had the skill set to learn maritime charts and understand how to read them (heck, Theodore Roosevelt when only an undergraduate student at Harvard, researched and wrote a book of naval strategy -- "The Naval War of 1812"--that became a classic and a text book used by both the US and British navies for decades after it was published). That being said, I gave Menzies the benefit of the doubt. I've long been intrigued with China and its history, and I think I wanted to believe that history as we have been taught might not be true. How interesting would it be for America to have been discovered by the Chinese?

As I read, though, red flags continued to pop up. Out of only sparse details, Menzies would assert "conclusive proof" that his theories were finding relevance. Finally, over two hundred pages in, I decided to check into what critical review might have said about his methods and evidence. I reasoned that if Menzies is correct, or even has a good theory, then the academic community would support his findings with further research. I went to the internet.

Critical acclaim was anything but what I found. In addition to finding entire sites dedicated to debunking Menzies myths, I also found that historical lectures had been given explaining and demonstrating that what Menzies proposed was just that--a proposal. Be it even true, the evidence was not there, not was the reasoning clearly logical.

For example:

--Menzies claims that Chinese anchors have been found off of the coast of California, but fails to document them.
--1421 says that Chinese DNA is found in North America natives, but fails to account for the influx of Chinese immigrants in the 17th century.
--Menzies finds what he claims are chickens unique to Asia living in Peru, but fails to note that Peru exported millions of tons of silver to China and brought back silk and porcelain (and presumably other things, like, for example, chickens) throughout the heyday of the Spanish during the 16th through 17th centuries.

And that's just to start.

Historian Kirstin A. Seaver says, in disecting claims about the Chinese in Vinland:

"The study of history is likely to reward anyone willing to undertake it in a quest for better understanding of who they are, how they became what they are, and what they might hope to become. The manufacture of a history that never existed rewards only those who make money by deceiving the public."

If 1421 is true, Menzies has not found the evidence to support it. If it is false, it's junk and a waste of time to read. Further, it perpetuates a falsehood that makes the acquisition of real history--real, boring, dry and factual history--that much harder to grasp. show less

A beautifully written and fascinating tale of the Chinese expeditions to all the oceans of the globe during the early 15th century. The author says that the Chinese not only sent out huge armadas all over the world, but on the sixth expedition during 1421-3, which is the one dealt with here, they split up into four armadas that criss-crossed all three oceans, and touched Antarctica, circumnavigated Greenland, mapped the Siberian coast, and so on. They also naturally left numerous shipwrecks all along the sea coasts of all continents, and also groups of stranded seamen and concubines who added their genes, languages, and cultural accomplishments to local populations. All these achievements are said to predate the travels of the European show more explorers like Magellan, Diaz, Columbus, and others. Ironically, the Chinese had spent so much on these maritime adventures and on their massive construction projects at home (their palaces and the Great Wall), that the successor emperors sharply cut back on their maritime activities, destroyed all the maps and documents, and retired their admirals and their dockyards, and entered on two centuries of isolation and xenophobia. Thus the author's theory rests more on circumstantial evidence and conjecture than on material facts. Naturally these ideas have attracted their share of criticism and scepticism, although there is obviously some ground to question the Western narrative of European priority in discovery and exploration. For South Asians, especially tantalising is the connection with the great ports of South India like Calicut, which was reportedly a mustering point for many of these armadas. All in all, an absorbing tale of fascinating episode of the world's history. show less