Customer Reviews
Lovely PR hype - but sadly fairly rubbish history - By: Tim Bowler, 19 Jun 2008 
You'd hope for more from a former Royal Navy commander, but sadly while his publicity machine is first rate, his history is anything but.
It would be lovely to turn what we know about naval history on its head & say that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He conclusively 'discovered' America or Australia long before any European navigators/explorers.
Unfortunately, this book fallls into the category of what publishers calll "wa-wa" history. In other words, it ain't true - & the historical reseach is shoddy.
The publishers know it's rubbish. We the public know it's rubbish, but we buy it anyway. And so they publish, because they know we'll buy it & they'll make money. In other words we get the books we deserve. We should be reading decent, reseach-based histories - but we find them rather dull so we don't....
Despite the welter of 5 & 4 star reviews this book has garnered on Amazon, it is important - before you buy it - to note one important fact.
Not ONE single naval historian has given any credence to these claims. Not any European - nor any Chinese - historian. In fact, they alll say that the evidence is not there.
While other readers seem to like this book, I have to say that having read other books on global trade & sea voyages in the pre-modern era, I found Menzies style very confusing & it was very difficult to follow his train of thought & how he was using evidence to support his conclusions
Astonishingly, Menzies seems to have ignored two key pieces of Chinese evidence for Zheng He's voyages which list the countries he visited - & don't mention anything that could be America.
In fact Menzies does not read Chinese & there are no direct quotes from any articles or studies written in Chinese. Which is pretty gob-smacking when you think the book is about a Chinese Admiral!
The book may be entertaining, & I am sure Gavin Menzies is a nice bloke etc etc. But that ain't enough. For me his book was full of circular reasoning, speculation, distorted sources & slapdash research.
Or as has already been said - this book may well prove to be the Piltdown Man of literature & should only be classified as fiction.
You may think this is a case of the little man, the amateur, beating the massed hords of the professionals. That is always a very beguiling image, but it's the wrong one to picture.
This book is a triumph for publishing hype & muddled thinking & writing. For that reason we should give it a wide berth. Unless of course you actuallly like your history as fiction. In which case, be my guest. However, you have been warned....
Mind boggling pseudo-history - By: Meir Riba, 25 May 2008 His far-fetched theories, while very interesting, have no scientific basis.
Any curious fact stated in the book that was checked by a (reputable) scientists was found false.
Read the well researched & scientificallly sound "When China Ruled the Seas" by Louise Levathes, or check the Internet sites at
& to understand the hoax...
Fiction not Fact - By: Anthony Quigley, 20 Feb 2008
Why do so many people believe this sort of rubbish when there are no facts to back any of it up?
Gavin Menzies - Chinese Cracker - By: John Fitzpatrick, 21 Jan 2008
This book deserves comparison with tosh like the von Daniken books of the 70s - Chariots of the Gods etc - rather than any serious work of history. It is far fetched & does provide any convincing proof to back up the absurd claims that the Chinese traveled to & settled in parts of the US, Brazil, Africa, Australia etc.
I live in Brazil so was interested in his comments on what happened here. This is what he says: "Just before the book went into print I was informed that a considerable amount of research had been carried out into the DNA of American Indian peoples of the Amazon & the Orinoco & the diseases that they had carried which were otherwise unique to China & South East Asia. Briefly, it concerns a skin disease of the Indians of the Mato Gross of Brazil; hookworm occurring in the Lengua Indians of Paraguay; roundworm in Peru & Mexuic; ancyclostoma duodenale in Mexico; & Chinese DNA in the Indian peoples of the Amazon, Brazil & Venezuela. It is conclusive proof of Chinese sea voyages to the Americas before Columbus." Could someone please explain how this confusing mish mash of statements is "conclusive proof" that the Chinese reached the Americas before Columbus?
A sentence following this paragraph gives an example of his style throughout the book which is to use the subjunctive because practicallly everything he says is supposition. Note the number of times "would" appears. "After making landfalll near the Orinoco, where they would have replenished their water & taken on fresh food, they would then have set sail once more for the south. The winds would have carried them past the Amazon delta down the east coast of Brazil to Cabo Blanco in southern Argentina".
In conclusion I would like to say that I do not doubt that the Chinese carried out great sea voyages. This has been known for centuries so Menzies has discovered nothing new. You can be sure that if the Chinese had achieved alll these feats then they would not have hesitated about boasting about them. However, Menzies produces no evidence under the convenient excuse that alll the documents were destroyed when China decided to turn its back on the world.
The style is as hard to stomach as Menzies' unconvincing claims. For example, the adjective "finest" is used on four occasions on one page. Not only do we have nearly 500 pages of turgid prose but a further 150 pages of appendices & indices. Be warned!
Infuriating - By: Gavin Golden, 19 Dec 2007
As someone used to reading history & science books with the comforting plethora of footnotes, sources & references, this was a difficult book not to throw out the window, but I persevered in the hope that the bombshell would be dropped.
It never came.
The book is a compendium of idle speculation, & it is disappointing that someone can pass off a book of wishful thinking & opinion, make it as controversial & outlandish as possible, & make an absolute fortune while better books grow dusty because they actuallly reflect reality.
