1421 --- fiction

[Green Arrow]

Should it? Really, should it? I don't tell you what to talk about or read. But I believe in freedom.

I don't tell you what to do, Bob. I merely advise. It may be your habit to discuss things you have no knowledge of, but I prefer to become knowledgeable about a thing before I discuss it.

[Bob]

I don't tell you what to do, Bob. I merely advise. It may be your habit to discuss things you have no knowledge of, but I prefer to become knowledgeable about a thing before I discuss it.

My point is the book is fiction. And you agreed. /this topic

[Bob]

To be fair, let's try to find a review of 1421 that favors the book.

1.
A terrible book on an interesting topic
[COLOR=#555555 !important]By William J. Poser on July 5, 2006[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#555555 !important]Format: Hardcover[/COLOR]The subject of this book, the Chinese exploratory voyages of the early 15th century, is an interesting one, and questions remain as to exactly how far they got and what they did. Unfortunately, there is little factual information in this book that is not to be found in other sources, and the novel claims are poorly substantiated. All too often, the "facts" cited are wrong, the nature of the argument Menzies means to make is unclear, or the evidence that he claims to exist is not actually produced. Let me illustrate from some of Menzies linguistic arguments. He claims that the Squamish language (which he mistakenly locates on Vancouver Island rather than on the coast of the mainland of British Columbia) contains no less than forty words that are identical with Chinese words. He does not cite any of the Squamish words and cites only three Chinese words. Not one of the three alleged Chinese words actually occurs in Chinese. At another point, he cites the fact that there is a village in Peru whose people speak Chinese. Aside from the questionable source of this claim, even if true, what would it prove? To constitute evidence that the Chinese had visited Peru prior to Columbus, he would have to show that the people in this village had spoken Chinese hundreds of years ago. He does not even assert this, much less provide evidence of it.

Menzies' own account of his research techniques leaves one gasping with incredulity at his incompetence. He claims to have inspected a stone inscription in the Cape Verde Islands in a language unknown to him. Thinking that it might be from India, he sends a photograph of it to the Bank of India. The Bank responds that the inscription is in Malayalam.Read more ›

2.


I was not expecting to believe all the claims in this book, though I was intrigued by the possibility of unexpected new findings about the age of exploration. The Europeans were clearly not the first to sail great distances and discover new lands. You would have once been dismissed as a crackpot for claiming that the Vikings reached the Americas 500 years before Columbus, but that's now accepted history. There's also plenty of proof that the Chinese were regularly sailing to the Middle East and East Africa centuries before Europeans could even leave their own shores. But this book, claiming that the Chinese momentously and influentially circumnavigated the globe in 1421-1423, is a disaster of hyperbolic claims and selective interpretation of historical evidence. That's because Gavin Menzies started with an idea, compiled evidence that seemed to point in the right direction, and convinced himself that he was finding mindboggling breakthroughs. But there is little reason for us to be as convinced as he is.

You can see plenty of other reviews (here and elsewhere) debunking the many, many research errors committed by Menzies. Most of these criticisms are more believable to me than Menzies' assertions. On a higher level I'll add that Menzies is an unabashed member of the "incredible coincidence" school of history. In just a couple of examples, among multitudes, he claims that the presence of Asiatic birds in South America means "the conclusion is inescapable" of visiting Chinese sailors; or an ice-free depiction of Antarctica on a map "confirm[s]" that the Chinese were there during a January. Menzies also unquestioningly accepts Chinese court histories as accurate, without considering the possibility that they may be distorted by embellishments or state propaganda.Read more ›

3.
Gavin Menzies' "1421: The Year China Discovered America" presents a fascinating premise: in the year 1421 a huge armada set forth from China to explore the oceans of the world, visiting not only India and East Africa, already known to the Chinese from previous expeditions, but also West Africa, the American continents, Australia, and even Antarctica decades or centuries before European explorers reached those same shores. But when the survivors of this great endeavor returned to China a profound change at the highest levels of the government had taken place, a change that ruptured contact with the outside world. China withdrew within itself, destroyed the records of the expedition, and the great adventure was forgotten.

That one including all of the review is very favorable.

But it proves the person accepts fiction.

In his review he brings up when the Chinese .... allegedly that is, got home. They found a new government. The Government hated the voyage so they plain blotted it out of their own history.

Very dumb premise. Very very dumb.

I think good fiction is fine. But to act as if this actually happened pulling in fake evidence, well, just fiction.