JasonKoivu

Step back Europe-centric thinkers, Gavin Menzies says you whities didn't invent or discover shit!

Sure 1421 has plenty of hearsay and conjecture, but there are some entertaining theories put forth by Menzies, most of which can't be backed up with factual evidence at this time.

Obviously by reading the subtitle ...The Year China Discovered America you get the gist of what Menzies plans to assert, and that China-first-to-the-Americas hypothesis rankles "the West" something awful.

Learning that China was on the forefront of invention, as discussed more thoroughly in Menzies' 1434, has been difficult for Europeans to swallow - no one is readily willing to chant "WE'RE #2! WE'RE #2!" - so you can imagine how tough it would be to shift the firmly entrenched pride in the longstanding belief that the old European explorers were first to the Americas. There are plenty of people - some scholarly and some not so scholarly yet highly "interested" - ready to defend the faith.

I don't doubt the possibility of these happenings - specifically a China fleet discovering South America first - and I'm certainly not going to declare against them, because I don't care who gets credit in the history books for discovering this, that or the other thing. I would like to see us humans get it right though, and unfortunately Menzies can't prove his theories. Aside from that though, his book is an intriguing good read!