And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook. And so the great ships were left to rot and the records of their journey were destroyed.

Their journey would last for over two years and take them around the globe but by the time they returned home, China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas' and unite the world in Confucian harmony. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Erudite and brilliantly reasoned, 1434 is sure to make headlines and change the way we see ourselves, our history, and our world.On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. This gift of knowledge sparked the inventiveness of the Renaissance, including da Vinci’s mechanical creations, the Copernican revolution, Galileo’s discoveries, and more.įrom 1434 onward, Europeans embraced Chinese intellectual ideas, discoveries, and inventions – all which have formed the basis of European civilisation just as much as Greek philosophy and Roman law. The delegation presented the pope with a wealth of knowledge, from a diverse range of fields: geography (including world maps that the author believes were passed on to Christopher Columbus), astronomy, mathematics, art, printing, architecture, steel manufacturing, civil engineering, military weaponry, surveying, cartography, genetics, and more.

Based on years of research, this marvellous history argues that a Chinese fleet, official ambassadors of the emperor, arrived in Tuscany in 1434, where they met with Pope Eugenius IV in Florence. In this provocative, highly readable history, Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that China provided the spark that set the Renaissance ablaze. In 1434, Gavin Menzies offers a stunning reappraisal of history, presenting compelling new evidence on the European Renaissance, tracing its roots to China

1421 by gavin menzies