1421: The Year China Discovered America

In all fairness, the writing of Menzy is commendable, its pace were good, not boring, and the narrative compelling. But unfortunately, this book should really have been, a detective novel than a history book. He just made too many unsubstentiated bold claims that should never have been made without hard solid evidence, many of what he claimed to be "evidence" turned out to be not evidence at all, in short he has had to distort everything to fit his hypothesis, as a History Student, this is an example how not to write history, but a good effort on style, he should have been a novelist.

Some of it may be true

Nope

Provided some evidence to support his conjecture. The initial suppositions seemed to plausible, but each chapter becomes more extreme, and eventually he's throwing out crazy ideas with nothing to back them up. At that point, I dismissed his entire thesis as nonsense.

just about everything.

I have just started this title,but feel like the author,having been a submarine commander,has a good command of reading maps and currents.He presents some interesting arguments for Asian people having discovered the Americas before Columbus.People on island nations tend to look much more Asian.How did they get there?It certainly wasn't over the Bering Strait.Simply because Chinese history of Zheng He's voyages are not documented most people will dispute them.Furthermore,the emperor had the records destroyed,which must have been some sort of conspiracy in my opinion.Otherwise it would have been Asia that was the first to industrialize instead of England.The things Mr. Menzies says are uncomfortable,because as westerners we want to have discovered everything.It simply isn't true.Documentation or not.Maybe like someone else alluded to,ingenuity developed in many places at once.Jared Diamond's Guns,Germs and Steel,was another great listen that really puts the modern world,in its current state, in a proper perspective.