Rating: 
Summary: An Amazing and Exciting Theory
Review: When I got this book into my hands, I looked at it's thickness and thought "I think I'll end up just skimming this one!". I didn't know how wrong I was!
This book is well written and engaging, although it becomes a bit repetative by the end, and will suck you in with visions of grand Chinese ships traversing the oceans of the world and discovering every continent, while the Europeans fight amongst themselves and build ships that would be the size of the support vessels the Chinese fleet used!I am not a fan of revisionist history. I believe that, to stand here in the 21st century with our concept of morality and fairness and to look back at Columbus (the butcher) or Thomas Jefferson (had sex with a slave) is hypocritical and self-defeating.
This, however, is not revisionist history in that sense! As I've described it verbally to a few interested (and more than a few NOT interested), what is so incrediably exciting about this book is that Menzies is NOT a historian looking over the same body of knowledge over and over again. He is a Naval Officer who has sailed the world and has a personal interest in Cartography. It was through this love of old naval maps that he began to realize that old European Naval maps were showing land (S. America, N. America) that the Europeans had NOT YET DISCOVERED!
So, from a Fresh and New point of view, he tackles this mystery and uncovers an exciting tale, while mixing in just enough Chinese History to make the reader understand just how powerful the Chinese Empire was and how far advanced it was compared to it's European counterparts. (When built, the Forbidden City was 50 TIMES the size of London; Henry V had 5000 soldiers at his command, the Chinese had over 1 MILLION!) Menzies is not a historian, and as others have pointed out the evidence is largely circumstantial and very, very broad. But the arguements and evidence cited is powerful and extremely thought provoking.
This is a great read, one of the more exciting books I've ever read to get your "what if?" juices flowing, and I found myself over and over again wondering how *professional* historians could look at the evidence Menzies uncovers and just ignore it and never uncover it's origin... I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Why not?
Review: I enjoyed Gavin Menzies' Book "1421" I am astonished at the level of scorn, disbelief, and discrediting that other reviewers have laid upon Menzies' work. I am not sure why people would prefer to disbelieve rather than conjecture. I also am curious as to why these Asian Sailors are refered to as "Ancient Chinese" and "eunuchs" all the time? Surely we do not refer to Columbus, DaVinci, or Henry the Navigator as "Ancient Europeans" and "heterosexuals" (assuming that they were). Is that important to a story about exploration?
What I sense is subtle racism: (How could Chinese possibly have done these things?!!! Preposterous! Why, the author didn't even consult an etymologist!)
I find it quite easy to believe that a civilization as powerful and as vibrant as 15th C. China could have supported such expeditions. Certainly China ruled the seas in those years!
Rating:
Summary: 1421 The Year China Discovered America
Review: 1421 The Year China Discovered America written by Gavin Menzies is a book about the grand plan of a Chinese Emperor Zhu Di to build the finest sailing ships to unite the world in Confucian harmony... a journey that would last for more than two years and circle the globe. This book is for the open-minded as the author shares his fifteen years of research tracing the astonishing voyages of the Chinese fleet that lasted from March 1421 to October 1423 well before Columbus was born. This book is well-wriiten and flows well and the tale unfolds about awe inspiring courage of Hong Bao a voyage to Antarctica and Australia, the voyage of Zhou Man to Australia the barrier reef and the spice islands to America and the colonies in Central America. There are accounts of Zhou Wen and Yang Qing and their incredible voyages. This book is well-appointed with a list of maps and diagrams making for an easier understanding of what the author is taking about and keeping the readers interest. This is an engaging, fantastic story of mans desire to know the unknown and through exploration finding answers some of which are incredible. If you keep an opened mind while reading this book you'll be well entertained with adventure. I found the book to be very interesting and enjoyed reading about early exploration.
Rating: 
Summary: A Captain's Sea-Tale
Review: Gavin Menzies has produced a striking book on the exploration of the world, claiming that the Chinese were the first to circumnavigate the globe, and, as the title suggests, the first to discover America. Menzies was not the first to come across such a theory, he said that there are "no less than 6000 books and articles which claim that Chinese or Asian peoples reached the Americas before Columbus". These books existence is not doubted, but the lack of publicity surrounding them makes 1421 stand out as a publicity coup. Menzies credits much of his "expertise" to his worldwide travels as a submarine captain in the British navy. Back in his day, there was no satellite navigation, so mariners had to navigate by plotting stars, and by coincidence, (I doubt it) one of his key plotting stars was the same that the Chinese used during their round-the-world journeys. He explains how "sea-level perspective" can warp the view of several low-lying islands into a coastline, which he uses to excuse some of the inaccuracies in early maps of Indonesia and North America. Menzies' theory relies heavily on non-written evidence, the least of which was found in China itself. He cites that "bolts of lightning destroyed the emperor's palaces," which made the emperor nervous that he was losing the will of heaven. Soon after, the emperor ordered all of the documents chronicling the exploration of foreign lands to be destroyed, an intellectual catastrophe that works out well for Menzies, who's theory relies heavily on tall tails and Chinese-glorifying legends. The reader is overwhelmed by information in 1421, perhaps to disguise some of the contradictions Menzies has worked into the argument of the text. In one section, he explains map-size inaccuracies away because of lower sea levels due to pole ice, later in his maps, he shows the Chinese traveling through the northeast passage, surely that would have been covered in ice? Menzies' amateur status does not help his reputation. In the preface, he writes of speaking at the Royal Geographical Society in London, it must be noted, that he was not a guest speaker at the society, rather, he rented their lecture hall and invited the public to join him. This and a series of other publicity stunts have certainly harmed his proposition more than helped. Sure, the media circus helped him sell more books, but would a real historian aggressively pursue more and more media coverage, as Menzies has done? It is understood that Zheng He had a giant navy that was sent out to explore the world, and bring riches back to china, but isn't it a bit much to say that the Chinese colonized the west costs of North and South America? If Menzies was looking to make a really convincing argument that would change the face of world history, he would have kept his rantings in check, but if he intended to make himself a nice retirement bonus, he succeeded.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, come now.
Review: A mildly amusing read even if it is fictional. A fleet with 10,000 people cruising around virtually the entire globe leaving villages in the New World speaking Chinese, monoliths carved in a uniform fashion at the entrances to many harbors and rearranging the flora and fauna of the continents would probably not go unnoticed by others. The author's relentless claim that the Chinese are cool and nearly everyone else is a distant also-ran is as unmatched to the facts as his many photographs are to the text of his tale. I have never read a book which made a freer use of 'darn sure conclusions' from facts which no one else seems to have heard of. The book is fun to read though as was the Fingerprints of the Gods but no less silly.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: A brilliant, well-documented (I'm not sure those reviews calling this book poorly reasearched were written by people who had actually read the book) book. In some instances, it must be noted, the author does present evidence that hardly merits the term, but there is such a wealth of said evidence that disagreeing with his thesis is hard for any rational and open-minded person. However, I would like to see a peice-by-peice attempted refutation of his evidence, as one cannot judge the validity of such a work without arguments against the thesis and alternative interpretations of the evidence.
Rating:
Summary: The Mahogany Ship
Review: An enjoyable read but, as other readers have noted, it would have benefited from more liberal use of the blue pencil to tighten the prose, remove cliches and personal figures of speech. One incident that is supposed to support the thesis is the story of the Mahogany Ship, the wreck of which is said to have been sighted in sand dunes at Warrnambool, about 200km SE from where I live. Difficulty is, despite all the speculation all we have is a couple of ancient anecdotes. A lot of time, money, and scientific expertise has been spent probing the dunes and grazing land near Warrnambool, over decades, with absolutely nothing to show for it. The search continues. These is an equal amount of speculation that the so-called Mahogany Ship was a Portugese caravel lost in about 1522, or a Spanish vessel. Another explanation is that the principal witness was simply a liar. Mr Menzies does not acknowledge these easily accessible alternative explanations.
Rating:
Summary: Speculative? Yes! Interesting? Yes! A good read? Yes!
Review: I enjoyed this book for one simple reason. It attempted to explain facts by connecting the dots of information using solid speculative techniques (read "Blind's Man Bluff" and see how the Navy tries to find a missing submarine). Of course it is speculative! That's the whole point of the book. If you can explain the facts presented with another theory, then print it.
Rating: 
Summary: not just dubious, but boring
Review: Much has been written about this author's thesis that the Chinese charted much of the world in the early 15th century. In my view, the evidence is circumstantial and highly suspect, and the book is very lightly footnoted. More importantly, though, this book reads as if it was written by, well, a submarine captain. Interesting ideas are occasionally brought up, only to be forgotten in the next paragraph. Many arguments are disjointed, leaving the reader to scratch his head when trying to understand how the author arrived at certain conclusions. In one chapter, the author digresses into a story about an African safari that ended when an enraged hippo threw a boat over the author's head! Gavin Menzies may indeed have discovered some compelling evidence for China's exploration of the world in 1421-1423, but he should have hired a real writer to help him make that evidence convincing.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Theory
Review: For some, Menzies' compelling theory is disturbing because it challenges the widely accepted "fact" that has existed for centuries. I have to agree with the other readers that some of his arguments are speculative at best; however, the main premise of his theory is the existence of maps that predated the discovery of America. Unless the cartographer(s) of the predated map(s) is a clairvoyant, it is difficult to dismiss the main premise of Menzies' theory. I hope the critics, especially the academics, can provide a rational explanations to refute Menzies' facts and theory about the predated maps before "nit-picking" the less significant arguments in the book. Is it not that a learning process requires an open mindset to new theories and discoveries?
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