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1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance
The New York Times bestselling author of 1421 presents compelling new evidence that the European Renaissance was spurred in large part by Chinese advances in science, art, and technology.
9 pages, Audio Cassette
First published June 3, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 263 reviews
August 29, 2010
An absolute piece of nonsense. Menzies, like Erich von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods) before him, is fixed on a theory of history and evaluates "data" only on the basis of whether they fit his theory. It is amusing that some of the very things von Daniken insisted were gifts of extraterrestrials Menzies claim came from early 15th Century Chinese. And like von Daniken with his aliens, Menzies doesn't think anyone but the Chinese came up with anything technological on their own. This book considers the highly questionable notion that a massive Chinese embassy fleet made its way -- somehow-- through the Red Sea/Nile canal in Egypt, descended on Venice and other Italian cities, and made possible the Renaissance. Well, ...maybe. But Menzies makes so many basic errors that the entire corpus becomes questionable. For example, he insists Columbus and other navigators already knew of the American continents in advance, ignoring Columbus' own delusional after action reports. He imagines that the Chinese taught the Europeans that the world was round, in spite of copious evidence that this was already well understood. Menzies imagines that Europeans didn't know a fig about oceanic navigation, although there's considerable evidence to the contrary. And so on. The work is junk history, the argument is not plausible, and Menzies leaves us laughing from page to page. His next book is already promised, claiming (presumably) that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He, after travelling the entire world, passes away and is buried near Asheville North Carolina. Oh my.
November 23, 2013
The only thing worse than Gavin Menzies' writing is his faulty logic and poor research. "1434" is an example of what happens when someone starts with a fantastic conclusion, come up with a series of unproven events leading to that conclusion, and ignores any contradictory evidence. Mr. Menzie's argument goes as follows:
In 1434, a Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and met with the pope. (No 15th century accounts exist in Italy or elsewhere in the Mediterranean of a large fleet of Chinese Junks being sighted).
This fleet reached the Mediterranean via a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile. (No such canal existed then).
Chinese Eunuch Admiral Zheng He led the fleet to Italy. (By all reports, he had previously died in Calcutta).
Books and charts left by the fleet inspired renaissance thinkers and explorers including Da Vinci, Columbus, Magellan, etc. (Menzies describes mountains of books and charts, none of which have been found in Italy. Also, who in Renaissance Italy could read Mandarin?)
Admiral Zheng He then traveled to America and died somewhere near Asheville, NC. (Yes, Menzies actually claims this but provides no evidence or an explanation how the Chinese got to North America and traveled 300 miles inland)
Admiral Zheng He did exist and made several voyages across the Indian Ocean but his fleet never made it farther than Africa. His journeys importance do not need to be exaggerated. Chinese culture also undoubtedly influenced Europe before 1434. Marco Polo's journeys occurred 150 years previously and overland trade between China and the Middle East exited centuries before then.
Menzies unsubstantiated book belongs on a shelf next to legends about Atlantis, Crystal Skulls, and pyramid building aliens and shouldn't be taken as historical fact.
For more information, I suggest the below NatGeo article about Admiral Zheng He.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm...
In 1434, a Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and met with the pope. (No 15th century accounts exist in Italy or elsewhere in the Mediterranean of a large fleet of Chinese Junks being sighted).
This fleet reached the Mediterranean via a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile. (No such canal existed then).
Chinese Eunuch Admiral Zheng He led the fleet to Italy. (By all reports, he had previously died in Calcutta).
Books and charts left by the fleet inspired renaissance thinkers and explorers including Da Vinci, Columbus, Magellan, etc. (Menzies describes mountains of books and charts, none of which have been found in Italy. Also, who in Renaissance Italy could read Mandarin?)
Admiral Zheng He then traveled to America and died somewhere near Asheville, NC. (Yes, Menzies actually claims this but provides no evidence or an explanation how the Chinese got to North America and traveled 300 miles inland)
Admiral Zheng He did exist and made several voyages across the Indian Ocean but his fleet never made it farther than Africa. His journeys importance do not need to be exaggerated. Chinese culture also undoubtedly influenced Europe before 1434. Marco Polo's journeys occurred 150 years previously and overland trade between China and the Middle East exited centuries before then.
Menzies unsubstantiated book belongs on a shelf next to legends about Atlantis, Crystal Skulls, and pyramid building aliens and shouldn't be taken as historical fact.
For more information, I suggest the below NatGeo article about Admiral Zheng He.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm...
July 28, 2008
Promising subject matter undone by unreadable prose and inscrutable logical progression. I can't explain the author's lengthy digressions into maritime minutiae while broadly glossing over more fundamental questions raised by his thesis, other than by supposing he's a sailor first and author second.
December 26, 2014
Insane and ridiculous.
I picked this up hoping for either an entertaining alt-history, or failing that, an eccentric read on Chinese history and technology. Instead what you get is akin to being locked in a room for 18 hours with a monomaniac with Attention Deficit Disorder popping speed and rummaging through a pile of newspaper clippings he has collected for several decades that proves, PROVES!!, his argument that the moon landings were faked to cover up the CIA assassination of Pocahontas because she knew too much about the secret base inside the hollow earth.
This book hardly even qualifies as fiction. It is almost entirely composed of a string of barely related historical impossibilities interrupted with personal anecdotes. Apparently, the thesis of this book is that the Renaissance began in Italy around 1450 because the Chinese arrived with revolutionary knowledge, but you can't get that from reading the book. The evidence presented is convoluted misrepresentations of the state of Chinese technology and its suspect similarity to later European uses, the citations are unverifiable or demonstrably false, and in general the only proof is "Because I Said So".
Take for example the evidence for this magnificent fleet of one thousand junks. There is none. No concrete record exists anywhere of this vast and unprecedented fleet anywhere along its path. How remarkable would this fleet have been? Consider that the current US Navy consists of about 450 active vessels. The entire proof Menzies offers that this enormous fleet existed is that junks are seaworthy and a photograph of a statue of a Chinese gentleman we are assured is admiral Zheng He. Put those two together and you get 1000 junks sailing for Italy, pay no attention to the complete lack of documentation from the highly structured Chinese bureaucracy that invented paper and records keeping.
Similarly, the proof that Zheng He arrived in Italy is that there was a Renaissance that started in Italy. How does one get a vast armada of junks to Venice? Easy, sail them through the Arabic canal connecting the Red Sea to the Nile. Menzies knows that there was such a thing because he saw a "green pencil line" once sipping scotch and looking out a Cairo hotel window. To be fair, there once was an Arabic canal near where Menzies claims it was, and it did connect the Nile to the Red Sea. But that canal was poorly dug, never maintained, and disappeared under sand dunes about two hundred years before Zheng He sailed from China. And now for proof that you should never sail with Gavin Menzies on his yacht: Even if the Romans were still in charge, and maintaining the canal in its best state, the depth of that canal was less than 2.5 meters. The draft of an ocean-going junk is close to that unladed. A ship loaded with trade goods and supplies and crew and had been sailing continuously for a couple of years would draw considerably deeper. I expect that had Menzies recognized any of this as an obstacle he would have had the crew out of the ships and digging their way to Cairo. This would be an excellent answer too, because that would explain how the Magnificent Fleet managed to sail to Rome up the Tiber and to Florence up the Arno. The crew had considerable practice digging canals in Egypt after all. Of course the fact that neither the Tiber nor the Arno are currently navigable can be explained by the Chinese putting it all back to how it was when they arrived as they left (this would be small potatoes when compared with the other impossibilities proposed in this book). This addition might actually lend some weight to Menzies account of how the Europeans were inspired by the Chinese visit to dig their own canals soon after, but only in places where it was possible and they wanted them to stay.
Menzies also provides us with a hilarious portrait of a common Chinese sailor on a make and mend day doing some self improvement by reading an encyclopedia. I cannot overstate the importance of these encyclopedias to the opening chapters of 1434. If anyone were to take Menzies seriously they would believe that Zheng He and his thousand junks set off loaded to the decks with encyclopedias that they both read for their own edification as well as using them as a trade good. Happy Bedouin and Indian peasant rejoice, for the Chinese encyclopedia fleet has docked and her army of salesmen are taking orders (every family should have a good set of encyclopedias for their children's education)!!! Can't read Chinese? No problem! Can't read at all? No problem! Easy installments will give you time to pay off your purchase and to learn to appreciate the beauty of Chinese calligraphy.
Other choke points include what I assume to be repetitions of evidence presented in 1421: The Year China Discovered America, and mainly revolve around the state of geographic knowledge in the 15th century. Menzies is entirely confident that the Chinese knew the contours of every continent by 1434, despite never even suggesting that there were any further voyages of discovery following Zheng He's entirely undocumented 1421 global circumnavigation. As the result of that single circumnavigation the Chinese not only knew the shapes of all the continents, but they also knew what they were named by the Spanish a century later. For a sample of how this works one first has to buy the ancient myth that Europeans before Columbus believed the world was flat. Then one has to believe that only some lucky few navigators had access to the secret Chinese maps revealing the entire globe, and even having that proof, never presented it to their doubting sponsors as evidence that their schemes were possible. Then one has to overlook that the only maps reproduced in the book are all, without exception, maps drawn in the 16th century or later. As an example of how this slight of hand works, here is how Menzies discusses the map painted on the wall of the Doge's Palace in Venice: The original was "published" (his mistake, it is a painted map) in 1428 and clearly shows the coastline of California and Mexico with a degree of detail not previously known to Europeans until the 1530s and includes mentions of several high-profile Venician traders as sources (including the Polos!). See? Proof of Chinese geographic influence, right there.
A few problems though. This is the map Menzies is talking about:
And this is what he claims is the source of all that detail on the Pacific Coast:
See the relationship?
Then we read this section about the Doge's world map:
Then before you can absorb that the author has just admitted that the map he is claiming represents the state of geographic knowledge in the 1420's was painted in the 1540's, we are quickly distracted with a discussion of two other maps made in the early 15th century (not reproduced in the book) that he claims show Chinese colonies on Vancouver Island and accurate representations of the Bering Strait "before Bering or Vancouver". One of these map makers, a Giovanni Forlani, never existed and appears to be a mash up of Paoli Forlani and Giovanni Orlandi (two Venician cartographers who both lived more than a century after the period Menzies is apparently describing), and a reference to a certain "Zatta" who by the index is one Antonio Zatta, an 18th century cartographer.
I won't even try to unpack Menzies' entire ignorance of genetic science. Neither will I comment on the gross ethnic stereotypes indulged in within these covers. I will also pass over his bizarre and unworkable system of defining longitude that uses ditches and water and shadows and astonishingly accurate star charts that somehow everyone forgot about after this voyage. Suffice to say, These are also problems. I will say, however, that should you be able to swallow the book up to the closing chapters you are in for a real cometic treat, a lie so big that you just get the feeling that Menzies is winking at the gullible idiots who buy his fables.
Now I could admire a book of well-presented and entertaining lies, plausible lies, or even a confused chronology. What I can't bear is that this book is a continuous messy narration of an impossible event which is approximately 40% assurances that "this has to be what actually happened because I say so", and another 20% efforts to steer you to his webpage "where all the real evidence is posted". There is never even a moment where the whirlwind of invented evidence and efforts to boost page views stops long enough to even consider the far simpler possibility that information and inventions can travel in one person's head, and do not require a fleet of a thousand unnoticed sand-sailing ships packed with their hyper-literate crews, their hookers, and their encyclopedias to arrive in Europe. Neither is there an attempt to explain why these freely-distributed revolutionary encyclopedias don't exist in material form or record in any European archive from that period.
Believe me, there is no reason to waste your time on this unreadable and entirely illogical book.
I picked this up hoping for either an entertaining alt-history, or failing that, an eccentric read on Chinese history and technology. Instead what you get is akin to being locked in a room for 18 hours with a monomaniac with Attention Deficit Disorder popping speed and rummaging through a pile of newspaper clippings he has collected for several decades that proves, PROVES!!, his argument that the moon landings were faked to cover up the CIA assassination of Pocahontas because she knew too much about the secret base inside the hollow earth.
This book hardly even qualifies as fiction. It is almost entirely composed of a string of barely related historical impossibilities interrupted with personal anecdotes. Apparently, the thesis of this book is that the Renaissance began in Italy around 1450 because the Chinese arrived with revolutionary knowledge, but you can't get that from reading the book. The evidence presented is convoluted misrepresentations of the state of Chinese technology and its suspect similarity to later European uses, the citations are unverifiable or demonstrably false, and in general the only proof is "Because I Said So".
Take for example the evidence for this magnificent fleet of one thousand junks. There is none. No concrete record exists anywhere of this vast and unprecedented fleet anywhere along its path. How remarkable would this fleet have been? Consider that the current US Navy consists of about 450 active vessels. The entire proof Menzies offers that this enormous fleet existed is that junks are seaworthy and a photograph of a statue of a Chinese gentleman we are assured is admiral Zheng He. Put those two together and you get 1000 junks sailing for Italy, pay no attention to the complete lack of documentation from the highly structured Chinese bureaucracy that invented paper and records keeping.
Similarly, the proof that Zheng He arrived in Italy is that there was a Renaissance that started in Italy. How does one get a vast armada of junks to Venice? Easy, sail them through the Arabic canal connecting the Red Sea to the Nile. Menzies knows that there was such a thing because he saw a "green pencil line" once sipping scotch and looking out a Cairo hotel window. To be fair, there once was an Arabic canal near where Menzies claims it was, and it did connect the Nile to the Red Sea. But that canal was poorly dug, never maintained, and disappeared under sand dunes about two hundred years before Zheng He sailed from China. And now for proof that you should never sail with Gavin Menzies on his yacht: Even if the Romans were still in charge, and maintaining the canal in its best state, the depth of that canal was less than 2.5 meters. The draft of an ocean-going junk is close to that unladed. A ship loaded with trade goods and supplies and crew and had been sailing continuously for a couple of years would draw considerably deeper. I expect that had Menzies recognized any of this as an obstacle he would have had the crew out of the ships and digging their way to Cairo. This would be an excellent answer too, because that would explain how the Magnificent Fleet managed to sail to Rome up the Tiber and to Florence up the Arno. The crew had considerable practice digging canals in Egypt after all. Of course the fact that neither the Tiber nor the Arno are currently navigable can be explained by the Chinese putting it all back to how it was when they arrived as they left (this would be small potatoes when compared with the other impossibilities proposed in this book). This addition might actually lend some weight to Menzies account of how the Europeans were inspired by the Chinese visit to dig their own canals soon after, but only in places where it was possible and they wanted them to stay.
Menzies also provides us with a hilarious portrait of a common Chinese sailor on a make and mend day doing some self improvement by reading an encyclopedia. I cannot overstate the importance of these encyclopedias to the opening chapters of 1434. If anyone were to take Menzies seriously they would believe that Zheng He and his thousand junks set off loaded to the decks with encyclopedias that they both read for their own edification as well as using them as a trade good. Happy Bedouin and Indian peasant rejoice, for the Chinese encyclopedia fleet has docked and her army of salesmen are taking orders (every family should have a good set of encyclopedias for their children's education)!!! Can't read Chinese? No problem! Can't read at all? No problem! Easy installments will give you time to pay off your purchase and to learn to appreciate the beauty of Chinese calligraphy.
Other choke points include what I assume to be repetitions of evidence presented in 1421: The Year China Discovered America, and mainly revolve around the state of geographic knowledge in the 15th century. Menzies is entirely confident that the Chinese knew the contours of every continent by 1434, despite never even suggesting that there were any further voyages of discovery following Zheng He's entirely undocumented 1421 global circumnavigation. As the result of that single circumnavigation the Chinese not only knew the shapes of all the continents, but they also knew what they were named by the Spanish a century later. For a sample of how this works one first has to buy the ancient myth that Europeans before Columbus believed the world was flat. Then one has to believe that only some lucky few navigators had access to the secret Chinese maps revealing the entire globe, and even having that proof, never presented it to their doubting sponsors as evidence that their schemes were possible. Then one has to overlook that the only maps reproduced in the book are all, without exception, maps drawn in the 16th century or later. As an example of how this slight of hand works, here is how Menzies discusses the map painted on the wall of the Doge's Palace in Venice: The original was "published" (his mistake, it is a painted map) in 1428 and clearly shows the coastline of California and Mexico with a degree of detail not previously known to Europeans until the 1530s and includes mentions of several high-profile Venician traders as sources (including the Polos!). See? Proof of Chinese geographic influence, right there.
A few problems though. This is the map Menzies is talking about:
And this is what he claims is the source of all that detail on the Pacific Coast:
See the relationship?
Then we read this section about the Doge's world map:
This map was probably completed before 1428...but destroyed by fire in 1486....According to Lorenzetti, the map was repainted by Ramusio in 1540 after the fire....
Then before you can absorb that the author has just admitted that the map he is claiming represents the state of geographic knowledge in the 1420's was painted in the 1540's, we are quickly distracted with a discussion of two other maps made in the early 15th century (not reproduced in the book) that he claims show Chinese colonies on Vancouver Island and accurate representations of the Bering Strait "before Bering or Vancouver". One of these map makers, a Giovanni Forlani, never existed and appears to be a mash up of Paoli Forlani and Giovanni Orlandi (two Venician cartographers who both lived more than a century after the period Menzies is apparently describing), and a reference to a certain "Zatta" who by the index is one Antonio Zatta, an 18th century cartographer.
I won't even try to unpack Menzies' entire ignorance of genetic science. Neither will I comment on the gross ethnic stereotypes indulged in within these covers. I will also pass over his bizarre and unworkable system of defining longitude that uses ditches and water and shadows and astonishingly accurate star charts that somehow everyone forgot about after this voyage. Suffice to say, These are also problems. I will say, however, that should you be able to swallow the book up to the closing chapters you are in for a real cometic treat, a lie so big that you just get the feeling that Menzies is winking at the gullible idiots who buy his fables.
Now I could admire a book of well-presented and entertaining lies, plausible lies, or even a confused chronology. What I can't bear is that this book is a continuous messy narration of an impossible event which is approximately 40% assurances that "this has to be what actually happened because I say so", and another 20% efforts to steer you to his webpage "where all the real evidence is posted". There is never even a moment where the whirlwind of invented evidence and efforts to boost page views stops long enough to even consider the far simpler possibility that information and inventions can travel in one person's head, and do not require a fleet of a thousand unnoticed sand-sailing ships packed with their hyper-literate crews, their hookers, and their encyclopedias to arrive in Europe. Neither is there an attempt to explain why these freely-distributed revolutionary encyclopedias don't exist in material form or record in any European archive from that period.
Believe me, there is no reason to waste your time on this unreadable and entirely illogical book.
January 11, 2011
I picked this up as a bargain bin find, and I still got ripped off. There SEEMS to be enough evidence (although, I am leary of saying the evidence he gathers is all that great) to suggest Chinese contact with Europe for many centuries; however, the author's specific "story" of a fleet that provided all of the fuel for the blossoming of the Renaissance seems far-fetched. The evidence is not examined at great lengths, and a lot of his research depends on the British Library System; the author does not examine Chinese sources except through third-hand accounts that come in through his website. This is another problem; the author will state how he has found such-and-such evidence, but then he will tell the reader to refer to his website in order to view it. In most history books that I've read, I'm giving all the research up-front to determine whether or not I believe the hypothesis; I don't think forums and discussion boards provide a sufficient source for academic research just yet.
Other problems with the book include frequent/unnecessary digressions (3 or more chapters on nagivation by the stars which all lead to the conclusion that a Chinese fleet must have navigated this way, passed it on to Europeans, who in turn must have found America this way), frequent references to his own travels with his wife to see museums or libraries where his evidence has just been lying about to be discovered, a too-casual tone, and frequent disbelief that no one else has ever made such a momentous discovery.
I struggled through this book, and I would not recommend it to anyone.
Other problems with the book include frequent/unnecessary digressions (3 or more chapters on nagivation by the stars which all lead to the conclusion that a Chinese fleet must have navigated this way, passed it on to Europeans, who in turn must have found America this way), frequent references to his own travels with his wife to see museums or libraries where his evidence has just been lying about to be discovered, a too-casual tone, and frequent disbelief that no one else has ever made such a momentous discovery.
I struggled through this book, and I would not recommend it to anyone.
September 2, 2008
So there were some interesting bits. I enjoyed the first few pages, the last chapter, and some bits in the middle about DaVinchi. The rest was monotinous and slow and boring as all hell. The author kept telling the reader to visit his website for more information. It read more like a series of articles that should be in a magazine rather than a book. This tried to be many things, and got lost along the way. Just not my style of history book.
Read
May 17, 20110 (Zero) stars. What an awful book. Terrible. I finished this only because I started it but what a poor reason to do so. The title of the book is misleading. Very few pages, actually, no pages, are spent describing the interactions that supposedly occurred between the Italians and Chinese. Rather, the author covers ground previously gone over in his other book, 1421. Ok, I get it, the Chinese, or so he claims, knew more about geography than Europeans did. When Menzies does get around to possible knowledge transmitted from the Chinese to Europeans, he writes very little of actual interactions and, rather, speculates on how this or that person lifted ideas from the Chinese via "encyclopedia" type books some of the Chinese may have brought with them. The writing is awful and delves too much into the authors research trips, vacation notes, and what he and Marcela, his wife, thought of this or that locale. Just an awful book. So disappointing.
November 4, 2017
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2897640.html
This book is total tosh. The contention is that Chinese knowledge was spread to Italy via a treasure fleet which sailed through the Red Sea-Nile canal in 1434. I smelt a rat when reading the chapter on celestial navigation, which is surprisingly poor for an author who claims to be ex-Navy, and started wondering when we would get some actual evidence for his claims. 50 pages in, I started googling and discovered that a lot of people had been there before me; there simply is no evidence whatsoever that Zheng He got as far as Italy in 1434. (He did get as far as the Red Sea, which is surely impressive enough.) Poorly researched, poorly argued and poorly written, and I'm generously going to include it in my non-fiction rather than fiction tally. I am hesitating whether even to give it to the charity shop, out of concern that someone might buy it and believe it.
This book is total tosh. The contention is that Chinese knowledge was spread to Italy via a treasure fleet which sailed through the Red Sea-Nile canal in 1434. I smelt a rat when reading the chapter on celestial navigation, which is surprisingly poor for an author who claims to be ex-Navy, and started wondering when we would get some actual evidence for his claims. 50 pages in, I started googling and discovered that a lot of people had been there before me; there simply is no evidence whatsoever that Zheng He got as far as Italy in 1434. (He did get as far as the Red Sea, which is surely impressive enough.) Poorly researched, poorly argued and poorly written, and I'm generously going to include it in my non-fiction rather than fiction tally. I am hesitating whether even to give it to the charity shop, out of concern that someone might buy it and believe it.
June 5, 2009
Couldn't finish this book. It was one continuous advertisement for the author's website and theories. Interesting ideas were discussed, but I think this guy does not follow a scientific approach to research. Instead he starts with the idea that every significant technological advance and geographical discovery was first accomplished by or only achieved because of the Chinese. His book is a "proof" of that thesis, but I'm not entirely convinced and got sick of being referred to his website which is supposed to help me believe what the book couldn't convince me of.
July 22, 2010
If the outrageous claims and historical speculations in 1421 didn't completely turn you off, 1434 offers more of the same. Gavin's two books have been torn to shreds by ravenous critics across the internet. Like 1421, probably not worth your time reading unless you have a deep interest in Chinese history and the patience to sort out fact from fiction.
July 29, 2008
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
We Westerners are of course familiar with the historical period known as the Renaissance; taking place between the 1300s and 1600s, it's the period when Europeans finally crawled out of their Dark-Age hole, rediscovered such ancient Greek concepts as science and philosophy, and started doing such things for the first time as sailing to the far corners of the planet. But did you know that China as well went through its own brief Renaissance at the same time, actually sailing around the planet on a regular basis a full 50 years before the Europeans started doing so, and that it was the maps and tips these Chinese gave to the Europeans that allowed the great figures from the "Age of Discovery" to make their voyages in the first place? Well, okay, so not everyone completely agrees with this theory; but it's the surprisingly strong one being espoused in the books 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, both of them by a retired British naval commander named Gavin Menzies, a hobbyist scholar who just happened to start stumbling across more and more evidence during his studies to support the theory mentioned above. See, the whole thing is problematic, because the Chinese actually went through a major period of isolationism right after this brief period of world-traveling, specifically as a overreaction to Ghengis Khan and his Mongol Hoard, which had actually held and ruled China all the way up to the beginning of the 1400s, or in other words the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in that country.
According to well-known history, the Chinese were so set on turning inwards at this point, they actually destroyed most of their own records regarding their globetrotting sea voyages from this period, just so no one else would be tempted to make such trips again; according to Menzies, he has slowly been putting the pieces back together through shreds of evidence in other countries, stone markers and rescued scrolls and the like, revealing that the Ming Dynasty's own period of global seafaring was actually much larger than any of us have ever realized, a systematic series of successes that would've virtually guaranteed China's eventual world domination, if they had simply stuck with it instead of embarking on a four-hundred-year period of profound isolationism like they actually did. It's certainly an intriguing theory, and Menzies does a pretty credible job backing it up; these are giant thick books we're talking about (over a thousand pages altogether), just chock-full of evidence both direct and circumstantial. Combine this, then, with Menzies' tech-savvy prose concerning the problems of map-drawing and chart-creating in that period, which is why certain documents from that period need to be widened or narrowed in Photoshop before they'll actually line up with real coastlines; it's just one of the dozens of little issues and problems with all this old evidence, he argues, that prevented it from being all added together by anyone else before now. (See, one of the things Menzies did while in the navy was actually sail the ancient Chinese routes talked about in these books; he therefore has an expert's understanding on what these routes must've been like for the original Chinese sailors, and can thus explain the inconsistencies in the maps and charts they left behind.)
These were great reads, books that really crank the gears of the mind into action (why, just the descriptions of a glittering, wealthy Southeast Asia in the 1400s is worth the cover price alone); I'll warn you, though, that these are denser books than the usual airport and beach reads, not exactly academic in complexity but definitely stories you need to pay careful attention to while reading. That said, they both get a big recommendation from me, especially for the growing amount of people in the western half of the world who are becoming more and more curious these days about the mysterious history of the eastern half.
Out of 10: 9.3
We Westerners are of course familiar with the historical period known as the Renaissance; taking place between the 1300s and 1600s, it's the period when Europeans finally crawled out of their Dark-Age hole, rediscovered such ancient Greek concepts as science and philosophy, and started doing such things for the first time as sailing to the far corners of the planet. But did you know that China as well went through its own brief Renaissance at the same time, actually sailing around the planet on a regular basis a full 50 years before the Europeans started doing so, and that it was the maps and tips these Chinese gave to the Europeans that allowed the great figures from the "Age of Discovery" to make their voyages in the first place? Well, okay, so not everyone completely agrees with this theory; but it's the surprisingly strong one being espoused in the books 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, both of them by a retired British naval commander named Gavin Menzies, a hobbyist scholar who just happened to start stumbling across more and more evidence during his studies to support the theory mentioned above. See, the whole thing is problematic, because the Chinese actually went through a major period of isolationism right after this brief period of world-traveling, specifically as a overreaction to Ghengis Khan and his Mongol Hoard, which had actually held and ruled China all the way up to the beginning of the 1400s, or in other words the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in that country.
According to well-known history, the Chinese were so set on turning inwards at this point, they actually destroyed most of their own records regarding their globetrotting sea voyages from this period, just so no one else would be tempted to make such trips again; according to Menzies, he has slowly been putting the pieces back together through shreds of evidence in other countries, stone markers and rescued scrolls and the like, revealing that the Ming Dynasty's own period of global seafaring was actually much larger than any of us have ever realized, a systematic series of successes that would've virtually guaranteed China's eventual world domination, if they had simply stuck with it instead of embarking on a four-hundred-year period of profound isolationism like they actually did. It's certainly an intriguing theory, and Menzies does a pretty credible job backing it up; these are giant thick books we're talking about (over a thousand pages altogether), just chock-full of evidence both direct and circumstantial. Combine this, then, with Menzies' tech-savvy prose concerning the problems of map-drawing and chart-creating in that period, which is why certain documents from that period need to be widened or narrowed in Photoshop before they'll actually line up with real coastlines; it's just one of the dozens of little issues and problems with all this old evidence, he argues, that prevented it from being all added together by anyone else before now. (See, one of the things Menzies did while in the navy was actually sail the ancient Chinese routes talked about in these books; he therefore has an expert's understanding on what these routes must've been like for the original Chinese sailors, and can thus explain the inconsistencies in the maps and charts they left behind.)
These were great reads, books that really crank the gears of the mind into action (why, just the descriptions of a glittering, wealthy Southeast Asia in the 1400s is worth the cover price alone); I'll warn you, though, that these are denser books than the usual airport and beach reads, not exactly academic in complexity but definitely stories you need to pay careful attention to while reading. That said, they both get a big recommendation from me, especially for the growing amount of people in the western half of the world who are becoming more and more curious these days about the mysterious history of the eastern half.
Out of 10: 9.3
October 6, 2012
This is a fascinating book about how, in the early 1400's, the Chinese sent enormous fleets around the world, spreading their views, sciences, and technologies. These fleets were packed with enormous encyclopedias, learned scholars, scientists, geographers, and of course weapons for protection. Gavin Menzies presents a wide range of original research, where he has found abundant evidence for these fleets reaching far outposts around the globe. He relates how his visits to museums, libraries, indigenous tribes, and archaeological sites, helped to bring together all the evidence for these Chinese fleets. Menzies documents all the evidence he (and others) have collected, for visits of the fleets to locations around the world.
The Chinese had great influence on European explorations around the world. In the Doge's Palace in Venice, there is a world map that dates from the early 1400's; it portrays the Americas and the southern tip of Africa. There is evidence that Columbus had such a map during his voyages across the Atlantic. There is also evidence that Magellan had seen such maps, including one that showed "The Straits of Magellan", obviously drawn before he "discovered" it!
The Chinese introduced gunpowder to Europe, as well as designs for cannons. They brought astronomy and the science of determining latitude and longitude, as well as the technologies of printing, agricultural machines, and architecture.
These introductions of new technologies had enormous influence on Europe's Renaissance. Many of Leonardo da Vinci's so-called "inventions" are really very well-done illustrations that were copied from Francesco di Giorgio, who had inherited notebooks from Mario di Jacopo ditto Taccola. These notebooks included illustrations of canals, locks and pumps, parachutes, submersibles, tanks and machine guns. And, both di Giorgio and Taccola were influenced by the Chinese. Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations were big improvements on the original drawings, because they included perspective and additional notes. But the original Chinese influence is unmistakable.
The book provides a huge body of evidence backing up the author's thesis, that Chinese had significant influence on Europe's Renaissance. The scientific details about Chinese navigation, the technological details about Chinese canals and locks, were fascinating. This book is highly recommended to all those who would like to read something spectacularly original.
The Chinese had great influence on European explorations around the world. In the Doge's Palace in Venice, there is a world map that dates from the early 1400's; it portrays the Americas and the southern tip of Africa. There is evidence that Columbus had such a map during his voyages across the Atlantic. There is also evidence that Magellan had seen such maps, including one that showed "The Straits of Magellan", obviously drawn before he "discovered" it!
The Chinese introduced gunpowder to Europe, as well as designs for cannons. They brought astronomy and the science of determining latitude and longitude, as well as the technologies of printing, agricultural machines, and architecture.
These introductions of new technologies had enormous influence on Europe's Renaissance. Many of Leonardo da Vinci's so-called "inventions" are really very well-done illustrations that were copied from Francesco di Giorgio, who had inherited notebooks from Mario di Jacopo ditto Taccola. These notebooks included illustrations of canals, locks and pumps, parachutes, submersibles, tanks and machine guns. And, both di Giorgio and Taccola were influenced by the Chinese. Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations were big improvements on the original drawings, because they included perspective and additional notes. But the original Chinese influence is unmistakable.
The book provides a huge body of evidence backing up the author's thesis, that Chinese had significant influence on Europe's Renaissance. The scientific details about Chinese navigation, the technological details about Chinese canals and locks, were fascinating. This book is highly recommended to all those who would like to read something spectacularly original.
Read
December 4, 2018An incredible true story
June 23, 2010
As with reading 1421, you get the feeling that Gavin Menzies is a little bit of an obsessive kook, but even though he interrupts his stories with discussions of the wine he drank with his wife in a particular European hotel, he only occasionally bends the evidence to fit his preconceived notion.
He doesn't claim to be more of an expert than he is, and for all his shortcomings in writing style and cohesive case building (it's more of a drawn-out story than a debate), the evidence he finds and connections he draws are still somewhat compelling.
Ultimately, the connections and his logic are hard to ignore. Fascinating book.
He doesn't claim to be more of an expert than he is, and for all his shortcomings in writing style and cohesive case building (it's more of a drawn-out story than a debate), the evidence he finds and connections he draws are still somewhat compelling.
Ultimately, the connections and his logic are hard to ignore. Fascinating book.
June 1, 2018
1434 is based on a theory that the Chinese via fleet Admiral Zheng He sailed to Cairo and Venice. This contact then sparked the Renaissance. Menzies attempts to prove this with a lot of circumstantial evidence. Good history should be not so subjective. Maybe the ideas that advance societies can develop independently, simultaneously in different cultures. We saw this in the discovery and development of flight and atomic theory. Menzies theory is worth developing but real proof is needed.
September 14, 2009
not sure about this yet. Stalled on this one - not really scholarly in style, and seems more like a junior school book review than a history book.
Yes, I'm being harsh. I suppose because the author really isn't carrying off his intentions as far as I'm concerned.
Yes, I'm being harsh. I suppose because the author really isn't carrying off his intentions as far as I'm concerned.
August 8, 2017
Sementara itu, di belahan Timur, dalam kurun waktu yang sama dengan era sebelum munculnya Renaisance di Eropa, terjadi peristiwa luar biasa yang banyak dilupakan oleh sejarah (Barat). Pada Januari 1431, Kaisar Tiongkok mengutus Cheng Ho beserta armada raksasanya untuk melakukan pelayaran mengelilingi dunia untuk mengumumkan kekuasaannya. Kita yang di Indonesia pasti sudah akrab dengan pelayaran sang laksanama Muslim ini, yang sedemikian dihormati sehingga jejaknya bisa kita temukan mulai dari Bangkok, semenanjung Malaka hingga ke pesisir utara Jawa, kemudian ke penjuru Samudra Hindia. Pertanyaannya, bagaimana jika Cheng Ho meneruskan pelayarannya hingga ke Laut Tengah dan kemudian singgah di Tuscany (wilayah Kerajaan Romawi Suci) untuk bertemu dengan sang Paus? Dalam kunjungan itu, Cheng Ho dan armadanya membawa serta naskah-naskah serta berbagai perangkat ilmu pengetahuan dari Tiongkok yang kemudian turut andil dalam berseminya era Renaisance di Eropa.
Selengkapnya https://dionyulianto.blogspot.co.id/2...
Selengkapnya https://dionyulianto.blogspot.co.id/2...
August 30, 2025
Incredible story of China kickstarting the Italian renaissance. Totally changes what I was taught in school.
March 17, 2024
The purpose of this book is to discuss the role of the Chinese in setting off the European Renaissance. I got this book and another by this author at my used bookstore here in Chattanooga. I decided to go ahead and finish this one, as it had been on my shelf for some time and I am currently in a class about the Renaissance. I believe that the Chinese played a large role in a lot of things, with their technological advances and trade. I think this could have been a much more plausible book if the author wasn't a space cadet.
I would actually rate this zero stars, which is not something I normally say. The only salvation for this book was that it did have an interesting concept, and there were a few parts of the book that caught my interest and I made a note to look further into. This book was the absolute worst book I have read so far this year...so out of 50. I found this book to be nearly mind-numbingly boring.
I would actually rate this zero stars, which is not something I normally say. The only salvation for this book was that it did have an interesting concept, and there were a few parts of the book that caught my interest and I made a note to look further into. This book was the absolute worst book I have read so far this year...so out of 50. I found this book to be nearly mind-numbingly boring.
March 26, 2017
Perhaps it is the nature of "sequels" and my understanding of the premise of the book, but 1434 moved more slowly and had more slogging detail than I remember in 1421. I still found it a worthwhile read, and Menzies makes a good and believable case for his proposition that Chinese innovation, intentionally brought to Europe, sparked the Renaissance. Menzies work also supported two of my own propositions: that print as a medium is vital to culture, and that history is not a boring repetition of settled facts but a constant discovery of puzzle pieces previously unknown or previously misunderstood and misplaced.
September 10, 2009
Another compelling book from Menzies.
His first book, "1421" was for me one of the best books I've read so this sequel needed to really deliver. The information was just as exciting, well documented and just as ground breaking, however it was somewhat more burdensome to read. I felt that Menzies put more of his research in the body of the work rather that pushing it to footnotes. Since I read footnotes, it meant less flipping for me, but it also took away some readability. I would give it a 3.5 stars.
His first book, "1421" was for me one of the best books I've read so this sequel needed to really deliver. The information was just as exciting, well documented and just as ground breaking, however it was somewhat more burdensome to read. I felt that Menzies put more of his research in the body of the work rather that pushing it to footnotes. Since I read footnotes, it meant less flipping for me, but it also took away some readability. I would give it a 3.5 stars.
October 1, 2015
When the data from this book is looked at from the historical perspective supporting what is found in the world then the world evidence just happens to support what is in this book. For example where I live a 38 feet high rudder was found as part of the sand-mining that happened in the 1970s in Byron Bay NSW Australia that was then reburied. A 38 feet high rudder fits on a 4oo+ foot long Chinese Junk which was part of the Chinese fleets that were sent out into the world in the 1400s. . .
The book is fascinating, and the evidence is on my front door . . .
The book is fascinating, and the evidence is on my front door . . .
February 24, 2016
I am angry that I spent money on this book. I am only consoled slightly that I bought it used and none of that money went directly to the author.
I hastily picked up this book during one of my rare visits to the English used book store since it is so far from my house. From my quick skim of the cover, I thought it would be an interesting piece about how Chinese technology influenced Europe during the Renaissance. I was gravely mistaken.
The crux to Gavin Menzies theory is that Chinese books from the 13th and 14th centuries have diagrams of inventions that were drawn by famous Italians, such as Leonard da Vinci and friends, and this is proof to his hypothesis that Zheng_He, a Chinese admiral and explorer traveled to Venice and Florence, Italy and handed over the corporeal equivalent of the 15th century Chinese Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there are no records from China, Europe, or any other place between to back up this claim. The entire argument is base solely on conjecture.
Lots of things just don't make sense in this book. Many things that he presents as evidence is just Menzies jumping to early conclusions. In one instance, the author argued that Zheng He and ships traveled through Cairo because a Chinese map from that time had a description of pyramids in Chinese. This statement is far from definitive since people who have visited or heard of these pyramids could have easily describe these structures to a Chinese map maker in China itself. I am not sure exactly which map the author was referring to, so I could not look into myself.
There were tons of author claims that a little bit of research online would leave any logically reasoning person more than a bit skeptic. I am not learned enough in the history of this time period to dive into records to disprove Menzies claims. However, the author only provides two data points to make all of his claims. Here are drawings of Chinese inventions created during the 13th and 14th centuries. Here are drawing similar to the previously mentioned Chinese inventions that were drawn by Italians some time after 1434. There seems to be no research in the dissemination of these Chinese inventions. Are there other records of these inventions anywhere in the lands between China and Europe? There are many ways these ideas could have spread to Europe that author doesn't mention in his book.
Near the end of the book, the author shoots off in another direction and tries prove that Chinese settle the New World. Again, a lot of his arguments were dubious and jumped to conclusion. For some of them, I was able make some cursory searches on Wikipedia to find some holes to arguments pretty quickly. In his section about Chinese Settlements on the Columbia River (which is located in Oregon, United States), he states, "...local people grew a potato-like vegetable called the wapato , which is native to China. A quick look on Wikipedia about the wapato shows that, "Most are native to South, Central, and North America, but there are also some from Europe, Africa, and Asia." Like stated before, his book shows us only two data points: these exist in China and Oregon. Therefore, China must have colonized Oregon. Nowhere does he mention that these plants are mostly found in the Americas, but are also found all over the world. Another example he states is that Nez Perce had "...very distinctive spotted horses called Appaloosa, shown in paintings of the Chinese Yuan dynasty." Again, after a brief look at Wikipedia, I was able to learn that horses with similar patterns "...appeared in artwork from Ancient Greece and Han dynasty China through the early modern period..." A cursory look at Wikipedia quickly pokes holes into his cursory presentation of two data points.
Beyond the plethora of conjecture, his writing at times could come across as quite sophomoric. In a section of his book comparing drawings from the Nong Sung to those of the Italians, his captions came across at times very condescending. When comparing two dragon pictures, he comments, "This European dragon kite does not seem frightening!" On the next page, he writes, "Taccola's fire lances do not seem so fierce!" This childish style of writing does nothing to enhance his arguments and only detracts from ideas.
There was only one glimmer of hope for me in this book full of conjecture. During one chapter, he had an interesting and coherent section about the development of Chinese technology. Beyond that one chapter, there was no real 'history' in this book. My coworker from China and majored in Chinese history was completely baffled when I gave her an overview of the arguments that Menzies made. She laughed out loud when I told her that the author believes that Zheng He died in area around Asheville, North Carolina. I'm not making up that last part. It's in this book. He claims he will explain it in further detail in a future book.
After this, I refuse to read any other books by this author. For anybody who can give praises to this book, it makes me lose faith in our education system to teach common logic and critical thinking.
I hastily picked up this book during one of my rare visits to the English used book store since it is so far from my house. From my quick skim of the cover, I thought it would be an interesting piece about how Chinese technology influenced Europe during the Renaissance. I was gravely mistaken.
The crux to Gavin Menzies theory is that Chinese books from the 13th and 14th centuries have diagrams of inventions that were drawn by famous Italians, such as Leonard da Vinci and friends, and this is proof to his hypothesis that Zheng_He, a Chinese admiral and explorer traveled to Venice and Florence, Italy and handed over the corporeal equivalent of the 15th century Chinese Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there are no records from China, Europe, or any other place between to back up this claim. The entire argument is base solely on conjecture.
Lots of things just don't make sense in this book. Many things that he presents as evidence is just Menzies jumping to early conclusions. In one instance, the author argued that Zheng He and ships traveled through Cairo because a Chinese map from that time had a description of pyramids in Chinese. This statement is far from definitive since people who have visited or heard of these pyramids could have easily describe these structures to a Chinese map maker in China itself. I am not sure exactly which map the author was referring to, so I could not look into myself.
There were tons of author claims that a little bit of research online would leave any logically reasoning person more than a bit skeptic. I am not learned enough in the history of this time period to dive into records to disprove Menzies claims. However, the author only provides two data points to make all of his claims. Here are drawings of Chinese inventions created during the 13th and 14th centuries. Here are drawing similar to the previously mentioned Chinese inventions that were drawn by Italians some time after 1434. There seems to be no research in the dissemination of these Chinese inventions. Are there other records of these inventions anywhere in the lands between China and Europe? There are many ways these ideas could have spread to Europe that author doesn't mention in his book.
Near the end of the book, the author shoots off in another direction and tries prove that Chinese settle the New World. Again, a lot of his arguments were dubious and jumped to conclusion. For some of them, I was able make some cursory searches on Wikipedia to find some holes to arguments pretty quickly. In his section about Chinese Settlements on the Columbia River (which is located in Oregon, United States), he states, "...local people grew a potato-like vegetable called the wapato , which is native to China. A quick look on Wikipedia about the wapato shows that, "Most are native to South, Central, and North America, but there are also some from Europe, Africa, and Asia." Like stated before, his book shows us only two data points: these exist in China and Oregon. Therefore, China must have colonized Oregon. Nowhere does he mention that these plants are mostly found in the Americas, but are also found all over the world. Another example he states is that Nez Perce had "...very distinctive spotted horses called Appaloosa, shown in paintings of the Chinese Yuan dynasty." Again, after a brief look at Wikipedia, I was able to learn that horses with similar patterns "...appeared in artwork from Ancient Greece and Han dynasty China through the early modern period..." A cursory look at Wikipedia quickly pokes holes into his cursory presentation of two data points.
Beyond the plethora of conjecture, his writing at times could come across as quite sophomoric. In a section of his book comparing drawings from the Nong Sung to those of the Italians, his captions came across at times very condescending. When comparing two dragon pictures, he comments, "This European dragon kite does not seem frightening!" On the next page, he writes, "Taccola's fire lances do not seem so fierce!" This childish style of writing does nothing to enhance his arguments and only detracts from ideas.
There was only one glimmer of hope for me in this book full of conjecture. During one chapter, he had an interesting and coherent section about the development of Chinese technology. Beyond that one chapter, there was no real 'history' in this book. My coworker from China and majored in Chinese history was completely baffled when I gave her an overview of the arguments that Menzies made. She laughed out loud when I told her that the author believes that Zheng He died in area around Asheville, North Carolina. I'm not making up that last part. It's in this book. He claims he will explain it in further detail in a future book.
After this, I refuse to read any other books by this author. For anybody who can give praises to this book, it makes me lose faith in our education system to teach common logic and critical thinking.
January 14, 2019
I realize Menzies has dedicated years in making this book. As a hopothesis there is merit. There will always be debate on who the nfluenced what and we can squabble the minutia for decades. Valid points are made, much research has to continue. Menzies needs to organize this better and stop self promotion. All in all I will have to read again just to make sure I get a better grip n some of the foot notes
If you have no like of applied math, science, cartography, or Middle Ages in global history leave this on the shelf not for the faint of heart but brings up many interesting points that need further research. Also covers sell books so the title had to be “glorious:
If you have no like of applied math, science, cartography, or Middle Ages in global history leave this on the shelf not for the faint of heart but brings up many interesting points that need further research. Also covers sell books so the title had to be “glorious:
March 4, 2024
Thanks to my husband Tom for sharing as he reads with me, I jumped in after the first 1/3 was done. It’s scientific explanations were over my head. But the second 2/3 was brilliant!! So now I highly recommend this book for even the “uneducated” like me.
September 17, 2021
I have loved the entire body of Menzies' (and his helpers) work from 1421 through this book. This has opened a whole new realm of understanding...and of exploration, investigation...Many curiosities from the past are now explained and a much larger picture is beginning to come together. Near at the end of this book, the part about the Conquistadores AMAZES me!
"The great European explorers were brave and determined men. But they discovered nothing. Magellan was not the first to circumnavigate the globe, nor was Columbus the first to discover the Americas. So why, we may ask, do historians persist in propagating this fantasy?"
"Having embarked on the simultaneous construction of the Forbidden City, the Ming tombs, and the Temple of Heaven, China was also building two thousand ships for Zheng He's fleets. These vast projects had denuded the land of timber. As a consequence, eunuchs were sent to pillage Vietnam. But the Vietnamese leader Le Loi fought the Chinese with great skill and courage, tying down the Chinese army at huge financial and psychological cost. China had her Vietnam six hundred years before France and America had theirs."
""...in Zheng He's era the Chinese had no concept of the North Pole as the highest point of the earthly sphere. Accordingly, when they traveled north from China to the North American continent, traversing the North Pole (great circle route), they believed the journey was always northward."
""Fortunately, one part of the 'Yongle Dadian' remains more or less whole at Cambridge University, where it has escaped the ravages of the Boxer uprising and more recently the lunacy of Mao's Red Guards, who burned any intellectual book they could lay their hands on."
"This vast encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian) was a massive collective endeavor to bring together in one place Chinese knowledge gained in every field over thousands of years. Zheng He had the immense good fortune to set sail with priceless intellectual knowledge in every sphere of human activity....The fleet was a repository of half the world's knowledge."
"The saddest cargo of the great fleets were women. Traditionally, foreign rulers were each presented with one hundred slave girls. When the fleets retuned, the Xuan De emperor observed: 'Ten thousand countries are our guests.' The number of concubines and slave girls embarked must have been staggering....female slaves and their offspring made a significant impact on the domestic life and population of Venice, Florence, and Tuscany."
"Since A.D. 85, Chinese astronomers have made accurate observations of the period of planetary revolutions around the sun....they are correct to within a few hours."
"Thus Zheng He was able to provide Europeans with maps, navigational tools, and an astronomical calendar beyond anything they had yet been able to produce on their own. Supplied with this revolutionary knowledge, the barbarians would be able to make their way to the Middle Kingdom, appropriately "with deference".
"So for the stars in the sky, the Chinese had the same system of measurement they used to determine latitude and longitude. This system was called the equatorial system -- vastly simpler than the equinoctial system, used in medieval times before Guo Shoujing, which relied on the ecliptic or the horizon. After 1434, Europeans adopted the Chinese system, which remains in use today."
"It is my submission that Zheng He's navigators were able to calculate latitude to within half a degree, or thirty miles, and longitude to within two seconds, or three degrees. When the fleets arrived in Venice and Florence, their methods of calculating latitude and longitude were transferred to Europeans. In due course, Columbus and Vespucci used them to reach the New World."
"While Venetian galleys were primarily protected by archers, Chinese ships were armed with gunpowder weapons -- bombards, fragmentation mortars, cannons, flaming arrows, even shells that sprayed excrement over their targets. With these awesome weapons, Admiral Zheng He would have no difficulty destroying pirate fleets."
"Between the Pyramids and the Moqattam Hills rests the large, wide valley over which modern Cairo sprawls. This valley was once more than eight hundred feet below the sea and some thirty to forty miles across. The enormous river gradually dried up thousands of years ago and became heavily forested and rich in game..."
"It seems to me beyond argument that the world map on display today in the Doges' Palace is, as the Venetians claim, based on information that reached Venice from Marco Polo and Niccol da Conti and that this was the same world map taken to Portugal by Dom Pedro in 1428. Consequently, both the Venetians and the Portuguese knew the contours of the whole world before the Portuguese voyages of exploration even started."
"In my submission, Zheng He's fleets did explore Antarctica. The Chinese had, at that time, steppe ponies, which could be fitted with special snowshoes that would have enabled them to reach the South Pole. (Captain Scott copied the shoes, but unfortunately they were fitted the wrong way around."
"If the sun circled the earth, there would be no change in declination. A recognition of the change -- the flatter the earth's trajectory, the smaller the declination -- is tantamount to recognition that the earth revolves around the sun in an ellipse."
"From the publication of Regiomontanus's ephemeris tables in 1474, Europeans could for the first time calculate latitude and longitude, know their position at sea, get to the New World, accurately chart it, and return home in safety -- a revolution in exploration."
"...everything that Taccola, di Giorgio, Regiomontanus, Alberti, and Leonardo da Vinci had "invented" was already there in Chinese books, notably ephemeris tables, maps, mathematical treatises, and the production of civil and military machines."
"By the 1450s, Florence had silk and food. The Medicis had derived unprecedented riches from the silk trade and had used their wealth to fund astronomers, mathematicians, engineers, sculptors, artists, explorers, cartographers, historians, librarians, archaeologists, and geographers. The Renaissance was in full flood -- thanks in part to Chinese inventions and plants -- use of machines powered by wind and water, Chinese rice, mulberry trees, and silkworms."
"To me there is no place on earth with a higher standard of living than the Piedmont with her huge houses, wonderful food, historic cities, good-natured and charming people -- a life based upon natural wealth in a region whose advanced methods of farming and industrialization came six hundred years ago."
"The extraordinary magnitude and generosity of Chinese gifts to the West made sense from the Chinese emperor's viewpoint. If China was to remain a colossus on the world stage, the barbarians must be bribed and educated to continually render tribute. This voyage, however, proved to be the last. After that, China withdrew into self-imposed isolation. Europe, left to exploit China's lavish gifts, soon became mistress of the world."
"The transfer of intellectual knowledge in 1434 was between a people who had created their civilization over thousands of years, and a Europe that was just emerging from the thousand-year stagnation following the fall of the Roman Empire. The Chinese seeds fell on very fertile ground."
"They concluded that the Maori mitochondrial DNA was Chinese from Taiwan...'My point is very simple, that the indigenous people of New Zealand came from China...DNA is irrefutable evidence."
"The tsunami was more than 220 meters (700 feet) high when it reached Stewart Island farther north (beach sand had been carried to that height) and 130 meters (400 feet) when it reached Australia. The wind's maximum velocity would have been 403 miles per hour (Lamont-Doherty calculations). Increased pressure caused by the comet's kinetic energy would have created a Coriolis effect on wind direction. Waves radiating outward from the impact zone running up New Zealand's south coast smashed the ships into the cliffs; many others were hurled ashore on either side of the Tasman Strait in southeast Australia....Cedric Bell's report on the junks impaled on New Zealand cliffs is contained on our website www.1421.tv"
""Class/based injustices were inescapable for poor families like the Pizarros. The Arch of Santiago through which the family walked to mass was owned by the de Chaves Family, Castilians who had led the attack that liberated Trujillo from the Moors in 1232. They controlled who passed through it and shut out those who failed to pay their tools."
"Despite grinding poverty and inequality, faith seemed to give the conquistadores the courage to overcome any enemy. The conquistadores were marked above all by their faith in the Virgin Mary. She is said to have appeared in the clouds above Trujillo during the battle to capture the town. Today here statue stands high above the Pizarro home, easily visible on the walk to church....Religious life centered on the Virgin Mary. The coat of arms of the Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Trujillo consists of an image of Our Lady of Victory on a silver background. The Virgin was intimately engaged in the Reconquista, frequently appearing to assist soldiers in their hour of peril. Likewise, the spiritual heart of the Reconquista was the shrine of the Virgin Mary at the monastery of Guadalupe, on the southeast slope of the mountains of that name. The cult of the Virgin originated there."
"Save for Cortes, every one of the famous conquistadores we have mentioned came from a poor family; not a single illustrious Castilian family took part in their voyages of exploration. It is no coincidence the conquistadores were intensely legalistic. They negotiated with the monarchy in advance, with the division of spoils spelt out in detail."
"The great European explorers were brave and determined men. But they discovered nothing. Magellan was not the first to circumnavigate the globe, nor was Columbus the first to discover the Americas. So why, we may ask, do historians persist in propagating this fantasy?"
"Having embarked on the simultaneous construction of the Forbidden City, the Ming tombs, and the Temple of Heaven, China was also building two thousand ships for Zheng He's fleets. These vast projects had denuded the land of timber. As a consequence, eunuchs were sent to pillage Vietnam. But the Vietnamese leader Le Loi fought the Chinese with great skill and courage, tying down the Chinese army at huge financial and psychological cost. China had her Vietnam six hundred years before France and America had theirs."
""...in Zheng He's era the Chinese had no concept of the North Pole as the highest point of the earthly sphere. Accordingly, when they traveled north from China to the North American continent, traversing the North Pole (great circle route), they believed the journey was always northward."
""Fortunately, one part of the 'Yongle Dadian' remains more or less whole at Cambridge University, where it has escaped the ravages of the Boxer uprising and more recently the lunacy of Mao's Red Guards, who burned any intellectual book they could lay their hands on."
"This vast encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian) was a massive collective endeavor to bring together in one place Chinese knowledge gained in every field over thousands of years. Zheng He had the immense good fortune to set sail with priceless intellectual knowledge in every sphere of human activity....The fleet was a repository of half the world's knowledge."
"The saddest cargo of the great fleets were women. Traditionally, foreign rulers were each presented with one hundred slave girls. When the fleets retuned, the Xuan De emperor observed: 'Ten thousand countries are our guests.' The number of concubines and slave girls embarked must have been staggering....female slaves and their offspring made a significant impact on the domestic life and population of Venice, Florence, and Tuscany."
"Since A.D. 85, Chinese astronomers have made accurate observations of the period of planetary revolutions around the sun....they are correct to within a few hours."
"Thus Zheng He was able to provide Europeans with maps, navigational tools, and an astronomical calendar beyond anything they had yet been able to produce on their own. Supplied with this revolutionary knowledge, the barbarians would be able to make their way to the Middle Kingdom, appropriately "with deference".
"So for the stars in the sky, the Chinese had the same system of measurement they used to determine latitude and longitude. This system was called the equatorial system -- vastly simpler than the equinoctial system, used in medieval times before Guo Shoujing, which relied on the ecliptic or the horizon. After 1434, Europeans adopted the Chinese system, which remains in use today."
"It is my submission that Zheng He's navigators were able to calculate latitude to within half a degree, or thirty miles, and longitude to within two seconds, or three degrees. When the fleets arrived in Venice and Florence, their methods of calculating latitude and longitude were transferred to Europeans. In due course, Columbus and Vespucci used them to reach the New World."
"While Venetian galleys were primarily protected by archers, Chinese ships were armed with gunpowder weapons -- bombards, fragmentation mortars, cannons, flaming arrows, even shells that sprayed excrement over their targets. With these awesome weapons, Admiral Zheng He would have no difficulty destroying pirate fleets."
"Between the Pyramids and the Moqattam Hills rests the large, wide valley over which modern Cairo sprawls. This valley was once more than eight hundred feet below the sea and some thirty to forty miles across. The enormous river gradually dried up thousands of years ago and became heavily forested and rich in game..."
"It seems to me beyond argument that the world map on display today in the Doges' Palace is, as the Venetians claim, based on information that reached Venice from Marco Polo and Niccol da Conti and that this was the same world map taken to Portugal by Dom Pedro in 1428. Consequently, both the Venetians and the Portuguese knew the contours of the whole world before the Portuguese voyages of exploration even started."
"In my submission, Zheng He's fleets did explore Antarctica. The Chinese had, at that time, steppe ponies, which could be fitted with special snowshoes that would have enabled them to reach the South Pole. (Captain Scott copied the shoes, but unfortunately they were fitted the wrong way around."
"If the sun circled the earth, there would be no change in declination. A recognition of the change -- the flatter the earth's trajectory, the smaller the declination -- is tantamount to recognition that the earth revolves around the sun in an ellipse."
"From the publication of Regiomontanus's ephemeris tables in 1474, Europeans could for the first time calculate latitude and longitude, know their position at sea, get to the New World, accurately chart it, and return home in safety -- a revolution in exploration."
"...everything that Taccola, di Giorgio, Regiomontanus, Alberti, and Leonardo da Vinci had "invented" was already there in Chinese books, notably ephemeris tables, maps, mathematical treatises, and the production of civil and military machines."
"By the 1450s, Florence had silk and food. The Medicis had derived unprecedented riches from the silk trade and had used their wealth to fund astronomers, mathematicians, engineers, sculptors, artists, explorers, cartographers, historians, librarians, archaeologists, and geographers. The Renaissance was in full flood -- thanks in part to Chinese inventions and plants -- use of machines powered by wind and water, Chinese rice, mulberry trees, and silkworms."
"To me there is no place on earth with a higher standard of living than the Piedmont with her huge houses, wonderful food, historic cities, good-natured and charming people -- a life based upon natural wealth in a region whose advanced methods of farming and industrialization came six hundred years ago."
"The extraordinary magnitude and generosity of Chinese gifts to the West made sense from the Chinese emperor's viewpoint. If China was to remain a colossus on the world stage, the barbarians must be bribed and educated to continually render tribute. This voyage, however, proved to be the last. After that, China withdrew into self-imposed isolation. Europe, left to exploit China's lavish gifts, soon became mistress of the world."
"The transfer of intellectual knowledge in 1434 was between a people who had created their civilization over thousands of years, and a Europe that was just emerging from the thousand-year stagnation following the fall of the Roman Empire. The Chinese seeds fell on very fertile ground."
"They concluded that the Maori mitochondrial DNA was Chinese from Taiwan...'My point is very simple, that the indigenous people of New Zealand came from China...DNA is irrefutable evidence."
"The tsunami was more than 220 meters (700 feet) high when it reached Stewart Island farther north (beach sand had been carried to that height) and 130 meters (400 feet) when it reached Australia. The wind's maximum velocity would have been 403 miles per hour (Lamont-Doherty calculations). Increased pressure caused by the comet's kinetic energy would have created a Coriolis effect on wind direction. Waves radiating outward from the impact zone running up New Zealand's south coast smashed the ships into the cliffs; many others were hurled ashore on either side of the Tasman Strait in southeast Australia....Cedric Bell's report on the junks impaled on New Zealand cliffs is contained on our website www.1421.tv"
""Class/based injustices were inescapable for poor families like the Pizarros. The Arch of Santiago through which the family walked to mass was owned by the de Chaves Family, Castilians who had led the attack that liberated Trujillo from the Moors in 1232. They controlled who passed through it and shut out those who failed to pay their tools."
"Despite grinding poverty and inequality, faith seemed to give the conquistadores the courage to overcome any enemy. The conquistadores were marked above all by their faith in the Virgin Mary. She is said to have appeared in the clouds above Trujillo during the battle to capture the town. Today here statue stands high above the Pizarro home, easily visible on the walk to church....Religious life centered on the Virgin Mary. The coat of arms of the Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Trujillo consists of an image of Our Lady of Victory on a silver background. The Virgin was intimately engaged in the Reconquista, frequently appearing to assist soldiers in their hour of peril. Likewise, the spiritual heart of the Reconquista was the shrine of the Virgin Mary at the monastery of Guadalupe, on the southeast slope of the mountains of that name. The cult of the Virgin originated there."
"Save for Cortes, every one of the famous conquistadores we have mentioned came from a poor family; not a single illustrious Castilian family took part in their voyages of exploration. It is no coincidence the conquistadores were intensely legalistic. They negotiated with the monarchy in advance, with the division of spoils spelt out in detail."
February 26, 2018
Not as well written as his earlier book 1421. Similar theme, but not as convincing.
December 26, 2024
The only thing true about this book was that this was a huge money-grab for Gavin Menzies. So I hope that this book earned him a few more luxurious vacations in the world's most beautiful places.
At least 1421 was more plausible and much more palatable to read. The first book featured some interesting pieces that had elements that were quite convincing. Not only that, but Menzies writes in an interesting narrative traces possible movement of a large fleet of ships. 1434, however, lacks even those compelling elements.
The argument of this book hinges on a fleet, that based on the changes in Chinese imperial policy stated the previous book, should not exist. Somehow, maritime policy was somehow briefly reversed, and this enormous fleet was taken across an ancient canal into the Mediterranean...and then appeared in Italy, where a single meeting resulted in a massive transmission of knowledge, technology, skills, and material.......and there was no written record of this account anywhere else. While the Chinese fleet was the primary focus of 1421, they are missing from 1434. So this book felt like reading the result of a ChatGPT query of "Write a 300-page summary of the Renaissance, but pretend all the ideas are from China."
At least 1421 was more plausible and much more palatable to read. The first book featured some interesting pieces that had elements that were quite convincing. Not only that, but Menzies writes in an interesting narrative traces possible movement of a large fleet of ships. 1434, however, lacks even those compelling elements.
The argument of this book hinges on a fleet, that based on the changes in Chinese imperial policy stated the previous book, should not exist. Somehow, maritime policy was somehow briefly reversed, and this enormous fleet was taken across an ancient canal into the Mediterranean...and then appeared in Italy, where a single meeting resulted in a massive transmission of knowledge, technology, skills, and material.......and there was no written record of this account anywhere else. While the Chinese fleet was the primary focus of 1421, they are missing from 1434. So this book felt like reading the result of a ChatGPT query of "Write a 300-page summary of the Renaissance, but pretend all the ideas are from China."
July 10, 2014
I should first state that I read history; I research history; I am no longer a professional in the field, but I can discern what is credible and what might not be, and what most certainly is not. THIS is not.
I do not doubt that Chinese traveler/merchants - possibly very wise, possibly with lots of Chinese-invented goodies - showed up in Europe during the early 15th C. Why not - Arab sea merchants went to China and plied the Mediteranean, South Indians knew the coasts of south Asia and Africa (in 1421, Menzies tries to claim for Zeng He commemorative stones found in the Cape Verdes and on the west African coast, written in the precursor to the Tamil language). And nothing prevented Marco Polo from going in the reverse direction 2 centuries earlier, or di Conti from traveling with the Chinese treasure ships in the 1420s. The expansion of the known world came from many sources. I would suggest that, instead of doggedly "proving" every exciting development of the Renaissance had its origins in China, he consider that the confluence of many cultures, the improved ease of travel and the proliferation of the printed page made the Renaissance inevitable.
Adviso to casual readers: any book, even one purporting to be a popular (as in "not written in jargon peculiar to the field") history, MUST back every "fact" with a footnote identifying the source. (In this case, 1434 is far better presented than the previous volume, 1421, but the premise is weaker.) The website is as opaque as Menzies' writing. There are justifications for some of the author's interpretation of the facts, but without clear footnotes from trustworthy sources, read with a liberal sprinkling of salt.
I do not doubt that Chinese traveler/merchants - possibly very wise, possibly with lots of Chinese-invented goodies - showed up in Europe during the early 15th C. Why not - Arab sea merchants went to China and plied the Mediteranean, South Indians knew the coasts of south Asia and Africa (in 1421, Menzies tries to claim for Zeng He commemorative stones found in the Cape Verdes and on the west African coast, written in the precursor to the Tamil language). And nothing prevented Marco Polo from going in the reverse direction 2 centuries earlier, or di Conti from traveling with the Chinese treasure ships in the 1420s. The expansion of the known world came from many sources. I would suggest that, instead of doggedly "proving" every exciting development of the Renaissance had its origins in China, he consider that the confluence of many cultures, the improved ease of travel and the proliferation of the printed page made the Renaissance inevitable.
Adviso to casual readers: any book, even one purporting to be a popular (as in "not written in jargon peculiar to the field") history, MUST back every "fact" with a footnote identifying the source. (In this case, 1434 is far better presented than the previous volume, 1421, but the premise is weaker.) The website is as opaque as Menzies' writing. There are justifications for some of the author's interpretation of the facts, but without clear footnotes from trustworthy sources, read with a liberal sprinkling of salt.
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