Customer Reviews
Risible, flea-brained stupidity - By: B. McGranaghan, 07 Sep 2008 
There is such a thing as a work of fantasy. This is book is just that. No evidence whatsoever. No proof. No circumstantial evidence. Pure tosh from start to finish. This is no more history than books on Atlantis are history.
Do youselves a favour - if Sino-European history interests you, buy a good, well-respected, well-researched work on the subject. Leave foolishness like this to the idiots.
An interesting read - By: T. R. Alexander, 30 Aug 2008 
The basic premise of this book is that prior to the European voyages of discovery a massive fleet of ships left China & ended up circumnavigating the globe & on the way discovered North & South America, Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand & Greenland. The author, Gavin Menzies, is a former Royal Navy submarine commander & as such much of his evidence is based on his knowledge of currents & wind direction when compared to maps that predate the voyages of Columbus. He goes on to use a number of other sources of evidence to back up his case including, among other things, the presence of mysterious wrecks scattered the globe, the presence of animals & plants outside their native lands before Europeans reached them & the diaries of the first European explorers themselves.
While much of the evidence presentedin this book is thought provoking & definitely worthy of further study there are many pieces that are open to other interpretation & some that can only be described as circumstantial. I feel some of the problem that this book has is that it doesn't generally present its evidencein the best way possible being overly repetitiousin places & being a bit too informalin others. Overall 1421 is an interesting book that does present many new questions for historians on the accepted view of the voyages discovery but it does require more research.
Lovely PR hype - but sadly fairly rubbish history - By: Tim Bowler, 19 Jun 2008 You'd hope for more from a former Royal Navy commander, but sadly while his publicity machine is first rate, his history is anything but.
It would be lovely to turn what we know about naval history on its head & say that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He conclusively 'discovered' America or Australia long before any European navigators/explorers.
Unfortunately, this book falls into the category of what publishers call "wa-wa" history. In other words, it ain't true - & the historical reseach is shoddy.
The publishers know it's rubbish. We the public know it's rubbish, but we buy it anyway. And so they publish, because they know we'll buy it & they'll make money. In other words we get the books we deserve. We should be reading decent, reseach-based histories - but we find them rather dull so we don't....
Despite the welter of 5 & 4 star reviews this book has garnered on Amazon, it is important - before you buy it - to note one important fact.
Not ONE single naval historian has given any credence to these claims. Not any European - nor any Chinese - historian. In fact, they all say that the evidence is not there.
While other readers seem to like this book, I have to say that having read other books on global trade & sea voyagesin the pre-modern era, I found Menzies style very confusing & it was very difficult to follow his train of thought & how he was using evidence to support his conclusions
Astonishingly, Menzies seems to have ignored two key pieces of Chinese evidence for Zheng He's voyages which list the countries he visited - & don't mention anything that could be America.
In fact Menzies does not read Chinese & there are no direct quotes from any articles or studies writtenin Chinese. Which is pretty gob-smacking when you think the book is about a Chinese Admiral!
The book may be entertaining, & I am sure Gavin Menzies is a nice bloke etc etc. But that ain't enough. For me his book was full of circular reasoning, speculation, distorted sources & slapdash research.
Or as has already been said - this book may well prove to be the Piltdown Man of literature & should only be classified as fiction.
You may think this is a case of the little man, the amateur, beating the massed hords of the professionals. That is always a very beguiling image, but it's the wrong one to picture.
This book is a triumph for publishing hype & muddled thinking & writing. For that reason we should give it a wide berth. Unless of course you actually like your history as fiction. In which case, be my guest. However, you have been warned....
Mind boggling pseudo-history - By: Meir Riba, 25 May 2008 His far-fetched theories, while very interesting, have no scientific basis.
Any curious fact statedin the book that was checked by a (reputable) scientists was found false.
Read the well researched & scientifically sound "When China Ruled the Seas" by Louise Levathes, or check the Internet sites at
& to understand the hoax...
Fiction not Fact - By: Anthony Quigley, 20 Feb 2008
Why do so many people believe this sort of rubbish when there are no facts to back any of it up?
