1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies

In 1421: The Year China Discovered America, author Gavin Menzies presents a radical reinterpretation of Chinese exploration during the early fifteenth-century Ming dynasty. He argues that a Chinese imperial fleet, captained by Admiral Zheng He, traveled to the Americas in 1421 and was instrumental in introducing new technologies and understanding to civilizations throughout the East and West. If true, this would prove that the Chinese charted or “discovered” a large part of the World before anyone else - an idea which challenges traditional Western accounts of global exploration, and reframes the history of the World on a global scale.

According to Menzies’s hypothesis, in the early 1400s, following the success of his expeditions to the lands bordering the South China Sea, Admiral Zheng He was commissioned by the Ming Emperor to lead a vast armada. This fleet, which Menzies claims was larger and more technologically advanced than any other explorer’s, consisted of nearly 300 ships and 25,000 sailors. It sailed around the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean, discovering and charting the islands and coastlines that it came across. From these observations, Menzies contends that the fleet sailed westwards across the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1421. He then argues that this armada continued onwards, travelling as far as the Americas, sighting land in 1421 in Mexico and then moving south until they reached the Panama Canal in 1423. After exploring the region, Menzies claims that the seafarers continued their journey until they reached Cuba and the Caribbean islands, where they established contact with native people.

What follows is a series of events that Menzies cites as evidence in support of his claim that the Chinese were the first to discover the Americas. He believes that the Chinese voyagers introduced new technologies, such as the compass, to indigenous populations and left their mark in the form of many new developments, such as llama farming in Peru, terrace farming in Ecuador, and complex irrigation systems in Mexico. Other evidence he cites includes artifacts found by archaeologists that are of Chinese origin and have been significantly older than any similar artifacts from European explorers. He also points to cultural similarities between certain indigenous groups, such as hairstyles bearing a striking resemblance to those worn by Chinese sailors and several plant and animal species that are found in Asia, as well as the Americas, allegedly having been brought over by Chinese traders. Going even further, Menzies claims that the social structures and cultures of tribes in the Pacific Northwest share similarities with those of Chinese societies.

In 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies presents an interesting and broadly-argued revision of World exploration, contesting modern accounts of Western exploration and instead proposing an Eastern form of global exploration. His argument is well-researched and combines both archaeological and anthropological evidence in order to support his claims. Menzies offers a compelling view of history by exploring the existing archaeological evidence, which, he claims, paints a picture of China as the first global explorer and its citizens as the first to progress beyond the familiar realms of Europe and North America in 1414. While this notion is suspected by some and accepted by others, the field of exploration continues to be a contentious area of study, with significant debate amongst scholars likely to occur for years to come.