An interesting feature of the history of this publication is that professional historians have so far been notably slow to come forward with their judgments. What would be marvelous would be to read a review of this book by, say, Jonathan Spence. But few reviews have so far appeared.
The whole Western scholarly enterprise has united in the view that it was the European powers in their Age of Exploration who first charted the globe's major waterways and mapped the continents. Columbus, an Italian navigator in the service of Spain, "discovered" America in 1492, one ship in the fleet of Magellan, a Portuguese navigator also in the service of Spain, was the first vessel to circumnavigate the world in 1522, Cook, a British captain, visited eastern Australia and circumnavigated New Zealand in the 18th century, the North Pole wasn't reached until the early 20th century, and so on.
No, cries Menzies. Not only did the Chinese go to some of these places earlier -- they went to them all! And they probably went to them in the space of a mere three years into the bargain.
No layman is in a position to offer an assessment of such claims. Even so, it has to be said that the whole theory appears at best highly speculative.
The publishers claim that Menzies gave a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in London in March 2002, prior to this book's publication, and that his views were respectfully received. The truth appears to be, however, that he merely hired a room on the society's premises and invited an audience.
Whatever else Menzies is, he is certainly not an insider.
There's a touch of conspiracy theory to this book as well. At one point Menzies says that the great European explorers knew that they were sailing where others had already gone because they were using their maps. The famed European dominance of world exploration, in other words, was something of a ruse.
There is a current fashion for claiming that all history is a fabrication of those in power. According to this belief, the idea that Europeans discovered the rest of the world was successfully promulgated during the period of European political domination. If one day China comes to dominate the world, then here is a theory of their having done all the discovering lying conveniently to hand. If Menzies' theory is substantiated -- and even, perhaps, if it isn't -- it will prove very useful to some people.
The universal verdict on this book is likely to be that the author may indeed be onto something, but for the time being his case must be judged as not only "not proven" but also not yet comprehensively presented. In the meantime, new evidence supporting his claims will be posted online at http://www.1421.tv.
RSS