1421 the year china discovered the world

Church of the University of Cambridge told LiveScience in an earlier interview. 'Scholars who know this field have refuted this claim under no uncertain terms,' Sally K. The map on which Menzies stakes his claims, however, has been dismissed as a forgery.

They just came with the current, it's as simple as that.' 'If you just go out in a plastic bathtub, the currents will just carry you there. In addition, PBS will air a documentary series in 2004.'The traditional story of Columbus discovering the New World is absolute fantasy, it's fairy tales,' Menzies told the Daily Mail, claiming instead that Chinese explorers reached the Americas about 40,000 years ago. Controversy surrounding the book should be lively, generating sales. New York Times and elsewhere last March after he spoke at the Royal Geographical Society in London (see Book News, Nov. 7)įorecast: Menzies's theory was featured in the 32 pages of color illus., 27 maps and diagrams. Such an approach to scholarship, along with a promise of more proof to come in the paperback edition, casts a shadow of doubt over Menzies's discoveries. In just one instance, when confounded by the derivation of cryptic words on a Venetian map, Menzies first consults an expert at crossword puzzles rather than an etymologist. While the book does contain some compelling claims-for example, that the Chinese were able to calculate longitude long before Western explorers-drawn from Menzies's experiences at sea, his overall credibility is undermined by dubious research methods. Because China burned the records of its historic expeditions led by Zheng He, the famed eunuch admiral and the focus of this account, Menzies is forced to defend his argument by compiling a tedious package of circumstantial evidence that ranges from reasonable to ridiculous.

Menzies alleges that the Chinese not only discovered America, but also established colonies here long before Columbus set out to sea. According to Menzies's brazen but dull account of the Middle Kingdom's exploits at sea, Magellan, Dias, da Gama, Cabral and Cook only 'discovered' lands the Chinese had already visited, and they sailed with maps drawn from Chinese charts. The amateur historian's lightly footnoted, heavily speculative re-creation of little-known voyages made by Chinese ships in the early 1400s goes far beyond what most experts in and outside of China are willing to assert and will surely set tongues wagging. A former submarine commander in Britain's Royal Navy, Menzies must enjoy doing battle.

1421 the year china discovered the world