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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
From time to time, this reviewer comes across a publication so crackpot that I hardly know where to start in reviewing it here. I'm happy to see that Gavin Menzies' thesis in 1421: The Year China Discovered America, that a Chinese fleet launched in 1421, embarked on a tour around the world, discovering all major points before Europeans and leaving artifacts, has already been generally debunked by numerous sources. Perhaps the most substantial is Robert Finlay's review "How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America" in the Journal of World History, June 2004, where Finlay shows that there are no "lost years" in Ming dynasty sailing, and so Menzies' book is completely without foundation. My fellow reviewers here have also offered some important critiques. I would like to offer a perspective from my own individual profession, linguistics. Menzies writes, for example:
"Linguistics provide further evidence. The people of the Eten and Monsefu villages in the Lambayeque province of Peru can understand Chinese but not each other’s patois, despite living only three miles apart. Stephen Powers, a nineteenth-century inspector employed by the government of California to survey the native population, found linguistic evidence of a Chinese-speaking colony in the state."
The first assertion, on the Peruvian village, is not sourced at all and is either the personal fancy of the author or some minor crank idea. The second, however, is cited to an 19th-century bit of scholarship evidentally done without appropriate field methods. He goes on to claim that Chinese sailors shipwrecked on the East Coast of the United States would have been able to communicate with locals, as these would have included Chinese who had walked over the Bering Strait. Chinese walk across to Alaska and across all North America, but end up speaking Middle Chinese, and yet leave no trace of this dialect on neighbouring Native American languages? Risible fantasy. There's even an assertion that Navajo elders understand Chinese conversation, and an assertion that the Peruvian village name Chanchan must be Chinese because it sounds (at least to him) like "Canton". Perhaps the silliest Peruvian connection is between Chinese "qipu" and Quechua "quipu"; Menzies seemingly doesn't understand that "q" represents a completely different sound in each language. So, I hope that the reader with some training in linguistics can see what kind of arguments are used in the book, and beware accordingly.
If I may be permitted one final indulgence, I should like to protest Menzies' weird view of Chinese culture. He blasts European explorers for committing genocide, claiming that continued Chinese expansion would have led instead to a world of peace and Confucian harmony. This is the naive romantic view of the Orient held by a child flipping through National Geographic. A man of Menzies' age and experience should have realized that all civilizations have it within them to commit do in indigenous peoples--the marginalization of Tibetan and Uighur language and culture and the disappearance already of a distinct Manchu people stand as proof that the Chinese are no exception.
"Linguistics provide further evidence. The people of the Eten and Monsefu villages in the Lambayeque province of Peru can understand Chinese but not each other’s patois, despite living only three miles apart. Stephen Powers, a nineteenth-century inspector employed by the government of California to survey the native population, found linguistic evidence of a Chinese-speaking colony in the state."
The first assertion, on the Peruvian village, is not sourced at all and is either the personal fancy of the author or some minor crank idea. The second, however, is cited to an 19th-century bit of scholarship evidentally done without appropriate field methods. He goes on to claim that Chinese sailors shipwrecked on the East Coast of the United States would have been able to communicate with locals, as these would have included Chinese who had walked over the Bering Strait. Chinese walk across to Alaska and across all North America, but end up speaking Middle Chinese, and yet leave no trace of this dialect on neighbouring Native American languages? Risible fantasy. There's even an assertion that Navajo elders understand Chinese conversation, and an assertion that the Peruvian village name Chanchan must be Chinese because it sounds (at least to him) like "Canton". Perhaps the silliest Peruvian connection is between Chinese "qipu" and Quechua "quipu"; Menzies seemingly doesn't understand that "q" represents a completely different sound in each language. So, I hope that the reader with some training in linguistics can see what kind of arguments are used in the book, and beware accordingly.
If I may be permitted one final indulgence, I should like to protest Menzies' weird view of Chinese culture. He blasts European explorers for committing genocide, claiming that continued Chinese expansion would have led instead to a world of peace and Confucian harmony. This is the naive romantic view of the Orient held by a child flipping through National Geographic. A man of Menzies' age and experience should have realized that all civilizations have it within them to commit do in indigenous peoples--the marginalization of Tibetan and Uighur language and culture and the disappearance already of a distinct Manchu people stand as proof that the Chinese are no exception.
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Perhaps this book should have been called "1421: The year China Circumnavigated the Globe," because he talks about every other speck of land - big and small - to litter the ocean in conjecture with the Americas. He spends a ton of time talking about Australia. The topic wasn't quite as narrow as I had been led to believe. Which is fine. My problem is, while I agree with Menzies's general thesis that the Chinese were great oceanic navigators and there is evidence to suggest that the Europeans were probably not the first non-native people to land in the Americas, a significant portion of the "evidence" he gives is weak, circumstantial, and superficial at best. He has little in the way of hard facts, because apparently all chinese records for this time have been destroyed. For this reason, a lot of what he says is merely speculation and overreaching assumptions. Again, I agree with the general premise but perhaps not the way in which he reached his conclusions. I would have liked to have seen something more solid. It was an interesting read, though, and definitely gives you something to think about.
I had been wanting to read this book for some time now and i was not disappointed. The subject was fascinating and, whether you believe the theories or not, its well worth reading just to open your eyes to how global exploration and history is mapped out. The author himself has considerable naval experience to be able to add in reasons and theories of his own and is very clear to state what is fact and what is theory.
There is a lot of evidence in his favour and i for one find it very plausible. Its not aboyt rewriting history, more like making some corrections and adding to it and at least gives an understanding an insight into what long voyages so lang ago were like.
There is a lot of evidence in his favour and i for one find it very plausible. Its not aboyt rewriting history, more like making some corrections and adding to it and at least gives an understanding an insight into what long voyages so lang ago were like.
An interesting, easy read. Slightly iffy science as it goes on. Author talks about Atlantis at one point and that's where he lost me. I don't know enough about Chinese history to know how much of this book is plausible and how much is romantic speculation.
Figured out early on it was poorly sourced, shifted to reading it as if it was fiction but then it couldn’t hold my attention.
Poorly constructed, poorly reasoned garbage.
Not worth the time.
Not worth the time.
adventurous
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
I can definitely see why some people find this book to be nonfactual. I personally believe that most things mentioned in this book are in fact very factual. But there are instances where the author runs into a dead end of certain aspects of cartography by saying that a European nor other civilizations who are known for their explorations could’ve possibly been able to achieve or have the knowledge to achieve in drawing up these maps (that’s just one example), so therefore there’s only one group that did it and it has to be the Chinese. By and large I have nothing against his research, I think that in many areas of the book the author’s research is well done. Just that his, “Therefore, it must be/most likely were/could only be the Chinese”, leads me to believe that the author doesn’t know how to elaborate further on the subject.