Gavin Menzies has lectured at Melbourne University and is invited to attend conferences around the world. Last year it was the second largest selling history title in Australia. In 2003 Chinese President Hu Jintao, addressing a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, repeated the claim that the Chinese had discovered and settled Australia three centuries before Captain Cook. Not surprisingly Menzies' book appeals to Chinese pride. If true this makes Zheng He and his sailors greater explorers than Columbus, Cook and Magellan combined. His fleets supposedly left settlers and artefacts wherever they made landfall. Menzies tells us that Zheng He's giant junks circumnavigated the world, discovering Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, and Antarctica. Zheng He was real and remarkable - but perhaps not as remarkable as Menzies claims, for he suggests that the fifteenth century eunuch admiral and his captains set out on an enormous undocumented voyage. It's an alternative history of world discovery centred on Zheng He, a celebrated Chinese mariner. Menzies, an elderly Englishman with an easy charm, has written a thick best-selling volume called "1421 - The Year China Discovered the World". Rarely though does it meet a character quite as colourful as author Gavin Menzies. Four Corners often explores extravagant claims and tall tales.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |