Did The Chinese Beat Columbus To America?
In his bestselling book, “1421: The Year China Discovered America,” British amateur historian Gavin Menzies turns the story of the Europeans’ discovery of America on its ear with a startling idea: Chinese sailors beat Christopher Columbus to the Americas by more than 70 years. The book has generated controversy within the halls of scholarship. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists alike have debunked much of the evidence that Menzies used to support his notion, which has come to be called the 1421 theory.
November 10th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Dear Genius,
A letter below to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong explainas precisely what is wrong with Mr Menzies and his ‘thesis’. The ABC TV program is particularly revealing
Best wishes
Geoff Wade
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Subject: University of Hong Kong’s Hosting of Mr Gavin Menzies
Professor Lap-Chee Tsui
Vice-Chancellor
University of Hong Kong
Dear Professor Tsui,
It was with great surprise and even greater consternation that I read the advertisement (a copy of which I am attaching to this email), noting that the University of Hong Kong is officially inviting Mr. Gavin Menzies to speak at the University on Friday 16 June. The advertisement has apparently been distributed widely in Hong Kong. I initially thought it to be a hoax, but apparently the event advertised is to be held. The advertisement notes that the event is being hosted by the Faculty of Education, and the Departments of History and Chinese under the Faculty of Arts.
I find this almost unbelievable and write to protest in the strongest of terms. I also urge you to reconsider this invitation if the reputations of the University itself and these constituent elements of the institution are to remain unbesmirched.
As you will probably be aware, Mr Gavin Menzies is the author of “1421: the Year China Discovered the World” (or “1421: the Year China Discovered America” in the U.S. edition). This claims, inter alia, that Chinese mariners circumnavigated the world, reaching the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, the South Pole and so on. The work is completely without any academic merit and it has been roundly condemned as fiction by every scholar who has bothered to comment on it. A few examples of the reviews can be found here:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/15.2/finlay.html
http://thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=91
http://www.kenspy.com/Menzies/review2.html
http://www.kenspy.com/Menzies/review1.html
Failing to please the critics is indeed no crime, and opinions will certainly differ 180 degrees on most issues. However, the basis on which the book was produced is of greater concern to many. The so-called “evidence” Mr. Menzies proffers is almost entirely fabricated. The voyages did not and could not have taken place, and the “evidence” provided was fabricated to suggest that they did. Specific fabrications are detailed here:
http://www.maritimeasia.ws/topic/1421bunkum.html
This intentional creation of “evidence” in order to deceive the public (and of course to make money) has marked all of the actions and claims of Mr. Menzies since he published “1421”. A range of further lies and fabrications, and scholarly reactions to them, can be found here:
http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/lostworlds/articles/issues.htm
That authors and publishers want to make money out of the publications is also certainly not news to anyone. It is the means by which they do this that must be the subject of public scrutiny. And when the methods and aims of Mr. Menzies and his publishers (Bantam, Transworld, William Morrow and Random House, all of which come under the Bertelsmann AG group of Germany) are scrutinized, there become evident aspects which warrant public concern. The claims made, all on the basis of ongoing fabrication of materials, have become continuously more ludicrous (or offensive) in order to attract more attention. Unfounded claims of Chinese shipwrecks evolved into claims that Chinese scholars did not know anything about their past. His claims of global circumnavigation by Chinese mariners in 1421 evolved into assertion of Tang dynasty Chinese settlement of New Zealand, and claims that the Chinese settlers were eventually killed by invading Maoris. The harm such intentional fabrication and myth-making can give rise to need not be further described. A recent example can be seen in New Zealand where Mr. Menzies claims are being used to question the indigeneity of the Maoris:
http://www.nzcpd.com/weekly15.htm
The latest piece of related hate-mongering by Mr. Menzies can be read in a newspaper report copied at the base of this email.
Mr. Menzies is today a pariah within China, first because of his fictionalizing of the Chinese past, which has resulted in many people outside China now calling into question the entirety of the voyages of Zheng He, and second because of his collective and repeated denigration of Chinese scholars. His only apparent ally in China is Mr Liu Gang, a map collector who has recently unveiled a map which is supposedly a copy of a 1418 map proving Mr Menzies claims of Ming voyages around the world. Every Chinese scholar of historical geography who has deigned to comment on it has dismissed it as a child-like fake. Mr. Menzies continues to assert its veracity as it was created to endorse his theories. This is just the latest in the long line of “creative” evidence production.
His visit to the University of Hong Kong is in part intended to try to defend the veracity of the fake map. In a March 2006 visit to Beijing for a similar purpose, Mr. Menzies called to his assistance the services of one of his acolytes –Gunnar Thompson – whose seminal works include, for example, Marco Polo’s Secret Voyages to the New World.
Another of Mr Menzies’ supporters – Mr. Paul Chiasson – has published a related work – “The Island of Seven Cities”, which claimed Chinese settlement of Nova Scotia in the 15th century. This has also been shown to be a complete fraud:
http://www.1421exposed.com/html/7_cities.html
His other associates include genetic scientists whose tests have been labelled as ‘scams’, and persons who claim Chinese observation of eclipses in Australia several centuries B.C. Suffice it to say that his reputation in the academic world runs well into the negative realm. An entire website, to which I am a contributor, is dedicated to exposing his public deceptions: http://www.1421exposed.com/
More recently, the sad tale behind the book, its publishers, and the global scam they created have been detailed in a documentary by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners programme. The website and transcript are very revealing:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1699373.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1702333.htm
Added to this is the way in which Mr. Menzies treats his critics, which is equally appalling. His method of response is not debate or discussion. Rather, it begins with innuendo and often ends with his threatening such critics (and frequently their universities) with legal suits. It is not without reason that he is named on a British list of vexatious litigants:
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Asia&month=0511&week=b&msg=hVRc3WWmNX16pLh5×9w8iQ&user=&pw=
Which of course brings us to the question as to why the premier tertiary institution in Hong Kong one of the great universities of Asia is providing this man and his fellow travellers, who have repeatedly shown their contempt for the methods of academic enquiry, with a highly respected venue at which to further spread deceit. And we should also ask why it should have allowed the distribution of a press release, which is covered with references to HKU constituent departments, and yet is chock-full of absolute untruths: The reference to the 1763 map as showing geographical features which only Zheng He could having gathered is fiction, and the claims that European explorers found Chinese settlements in the Americas and that George Washington found a Chinese junk are blatant deceptions. The medal offered by Dr Lee has also been shown to be of “uncertain” provenance.
So, how should one react to persons who intentionally deceive the public for the purpose of personal and financial gain? When I grew up we called such people charlatans or snake-oil salesmen. I don’t think that times or methods have changed sufficiently to warrant a new name. The willingness to cheat the public through creation of “evidence”, the manufacturing of “issues” to further book sales regardless of the social consequences of those claims, and the appeal to visceral instincts in order to gain more press and sales are reasons sufficient to question why such an august body as your own should have chosen to have invited Mr. Menzies to speak under its auspices.
The issue that faces us then is not simply one of whether we should provide the man a forum under the general rubric of “freedom of expression”. Mr. Menzies has a website (http://www.1421.tv/) through which he can reach the world and to which anyone who wants to read his views can log on. Rather, it is a question as to whether august institutions, responsible for educating rather than deceiving the public, and receiving public funding should be making their name, their venues and their funds available to people who are not deserving of such. Having Mr. Menzies speak on the campus will not amount to endorsing his theories, but you will be allowing him to exploit the good name of the University. He has done this throughout the world, hiring a hall at the Royal Geographical Society in order to claim that he had “spoken at the RGS”, having a lecturer at Stanford University invite him to speak to his class so that he could claim to “have lectured at Stanford” and so on ad nauseum. The name of the University of Hong Kong will soon be added to such a list.
Would you provide an opportunity for the holocaust denier David Irving, for example, to propound his ideas at the University? The analogy is not far distant. Academic freedom needs to be balanced against academic responsibility.
The anti-intellectualism of Mr Menzies seems to be lauded in the press release as a positive factor (“broadening thought about conventional wisdom”). That this event is being organised by a Faculty which is supposed to be providing intellectual guidance to the teachers of the next generation is bad enough, but to have Mr. Menzies’ bumph being implicity cited as a desirable component in curriculum reform is going well beyond the pale! And this all to be aided by videos and posters!
The University administration must take a stand against this travesty. To allow it to proceed without comment will bring more than shame to the University’s reputation. If cancellation of the event is not feasible, perhaps the University could publicly, through the press and other avenues, dissociate itself from the proceedings, advise those attending that the event has nothing to do with Hong Kong’s secondary school curriculum reform, and somehow extract the University from responsibility for the event.
I am copying this email to other senior officers of the University, as well as to relevant heads in the Faculties of Education and Arts for their information.
This is written in my capacities as a historian of Ming China and a proud graduate of the University of Hong Kong. It does not reflect in any way the views or opinions of my employing institution.
With best wishes,
Geoff Wade
Senior Research Fellow
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore
Ph: (65) 6516 4562
Email: arigpw@nus.edu.sg
******
From: H-Net list for Asian History and Culture
[mailto:H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU] On Behalf Of Ryan Dunch
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 1:29 PM
To: H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: H-ASIA: Menzies, Maoris, Melanesians and Madness
H-ASIA May 8, 2006
Menzies, Maoris, Melanesians and Madness
************************************************************************
The Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand)
May 6, 2006 Saturday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 500 words
HEADLINE: Writer trashes origins of Maori
MICHAEL FIELD
A RETIRED English naval captain, who claims in an international est-selling book that China discovered the world in the 15th century, says Maori don’t exist as a race.
They were the product of Melanesian slaves raping Chinese prostitutes, writer Gavin Menzies said. Menzies, author of _1421: The Year China Discovered the World_, condemned New Zealand academics including the late Michael King, who, he says, “just doesn’t understand New Zealand history”.
Yesterday, Waikato University revealed it had asked Menzies to stop using its data on his website and in his books.
“We asked him to remove those, not because we were not happy with the dates, but because we were not overly happy with being associated with his interpretations of those dates,” said Fiona Petchey of Waikato’s internationally recognised carbon-dating unit.
Menzies was in Auckland promoting his latest edition, which centres on the voyage of a fleet of Chinese ships dispatched to explore the world by China’s emperor Zhu Di in 1421. The book contains copies of a map of the world that is believed to have been drawn during that voyage, and which may have been used by Christopher Columbus to rediscover the Americas. The book centres on a map unveiled by its owner, Chinese lawyer Liu Gang, in January. He said it was an authentic 1763 copy of the 1418 original.
The original has not been found, but a 1763 copy could prove it existed, giving credence to the theory that Chinese sailors travelled the globe long before Europeans.
A fragment of the map was carbon-dated at the Waikato University unit, which said its tests showed there was an 80 per cent probability that the paper dated to either 1640-1690 or 1730-1810.
Dr Petchey stressed they had only tested the paper itself and not the ink on it. “Anyone can draw anything on it afterward. Anyone could obtain ancient paper.”
She said she had had no contact at all with Menzies. “I do not stand behind the majority of what Gavin Menzies said and his overall theory I do not agree with. It’s somewhat far-fetched.”
Menzies, 69, said Maori origin stories were “just fantasy”. “I say the seven great canoes were Chinese ships. I can show a hell of a lot more evidence that the Chinese were here before the Maori than the Maoris can produce, other than their own folklore.”
Chinese miners were in New Zealand from about 286 BC, he said. They brought concubines from China and on the way to New Zealand picked up Melanesian slaves who revolted, killed the Chinese men and took the women for themselves.
This, he said, was the origin of the Maori people.
Menzies said his book had been well-received around the world but had drawn hostile criticism in New Zealand — because academics were government servants out to protect their pensions. “People just don’t believe them any more. I think they live in boxes and their whole way of teaching history is fundamentally flawed, from the bottom up.”
Copyright 2006 The Christchurch Press Company Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Press (Christchurch, New Zealand)
May 9, 2006 Tuesday