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1434 The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed To Italy And Ignited The Renaissance (2008)

by Gavin Menzies(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0061492175 (ISBN13: 9780061492174)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

William Morrow

review 1: One of those books of history about things you'd think somebody would have bothered to mention in a history class somewhere, but the cross-pollination of east and west is hardly mentioned outside of Marco Polo, and even that story is told in a one-sided way. The idea that the Chinese maintained an actual presence in 15th century Italy is astounding--and their purported contributions to the Renaissance era make perfect sense.
review 2: A very difficult book to rate. There are some thought-provoking and impressive ideas here and it is easy to get swept up in a seemingly compelling wave of evidence. However, on checking Menzies' website, the actual evidence seemed poorly documented to say the least (or perhaps I simply missed it because site navigation certainly ... morewasn't intuitive). As a result of examining the website, the sense that Menzies had a massive case for his critics to answer plummeted.So I'm left with: maybe. Possibly. Could be. But at the end of the day, I'm leaning a lot less positively than I was. If there is a wealth of evidence to support Menzies' theory that a magnificent Chinese fleet under Zheng He sailed to Italy and left advanced maps so the west could pay tribute to the east, it isn't in the books or, as far as I can tell, on the website. And what happened to Zheng He? Menzies suggests he ended up in North Carolina and, to be honest, I waded through the book, thinking this would be explained before the end. But it was left dangling... a mystery as impenetrable it seems as Menzies' evidence. less

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