1421: The Year China Discovered the World Author: Gavin Menzies Hardcover Usually ships in 3-5 weeks The item's supplier can usually deliver to us in 3-5 weeks, but there may be a delay if the supplier runs out of stock. Our Price: $45.95 Our Sale Price: $32.16 Savings: $13.79 (30%) Ordering is 100% secure . Spend $39 or more at chapters.indigo.ca and your order ships free!. ( Details ) ISBN: 0593050789 Published: December 2002 | Published by Bantam Press On the Jacket On 8 March 1421 the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emporer Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last over two years and circle the globe. When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years beofre the Europeans. Gavin Menzies has spent fifteen years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Chinese fleet. Now, in a fascinating historical detective story, he shares the remarkable account of his discoveries and the uncontrovertible evidence to support them. His compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators. It brings to light the artefacts and inscribed stones left behind by the emporer's fleet, the evidence of sunken junks along its route and the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, in thanks to Saho Lin, goddess of the sea. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World is the story of a remarkable journey of discovery that rewrites our understanding of history. Our knowledge of world exploration as it has been commonly accepted for centuries must now be revised. 1421 is destined to become a classic work of historical detection. About the Author Gavin Menzies (Royal Navy Submarine Commanding Officer, retired) was born in 1937 in China, where he spent the first two years of his life. He joined the Royal Navy in 1953 and served in submarines from 1959 to 1970. As a junior officer he sailed the world in the wake of Columbus, Dias, Cabral and Vasco da Gama. When in command of HMS Rorqual (1968-1970), he sailed the routes pioneered by Magellan and Captain Cook. Since leaving the Royal Navy, he has returned to China and the Far East many times, and in the course of researching 1421 he has visited 120 countries, over 900 museums and libraries and every major seaport of the late Middle Ages. Reader Reviews Average Reader Review: Number of Reviews: 1 1. Challenge against the history we know Reviewer: Stephen from Toronto Date: 2/18/2003 2:11:41 PM It is a pretty thick book, but the fonts are also rather large. This book has been one of the most anticipating ones (at least to myself) since Mr.Menzies annouced about his discovery a year ago. However, it is a bit disappointing that photographs of the shipwrecks and the maps which Columbus had used based on the maps from the Zheng He fleet were missing. Nevertheless, it is fasinating to see the comparison of the vessel sizes. The Zheng He vessel was at least 10 times larger than the Columbus and his fleet consisted of at least 40 vessels in each voyage. The Chinese could have established a colony in North America. Perhaps, they did, and this was how Mr.Menzies came up with the ideas plus his theory of Chinese using the star-charts for its voyage to America. My conclusion is: it is an interesting book, but Mr.Menzies would need much bigger effort to convince the western scholars who have been so into its Columbus theory. 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