Bargain books on the Middle Ages and all related subjects
Secondhand book for saleGavin Menzies.
1421: The Year China Discovered the World.
Published London: Bantam Press, 2002.
ISBN 0593050789 / 0593051580;
ISBN-13: 9780593050781 / 9780593051580.
Binding: hardback, stitch bound; printed boards in dustjacket.
Size: 165×240×47mm.
Page count: xxiii,520pp inc. 34 maps, 3 diagrams, all monochrome, plus 32 pages of colour plates; illustrated endpapers.
Main language: English.
Overall condition fair to good: this copy has some wear on its dustjacket, particularly at the top and bottom of its spine, and a little corresponding wear on the edges of its boards & spine; text pages printed on low-grade stock, so the text pages are yellowed with age; text appears to be free of marking.
This item £6.00
P&P inc. within the UK
(delivery outside the UK not currently available)[
Publisher’s price £20.00]
Weight without packaging: 1032g.
On 8 March 1421 the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. 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 whole world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last over two years and circle the globe.
When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans.
Gavin Menzies has spent fifteen years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Chinese fleet. Now, in a fascinating historical detective story, he shares the remarkable account of his discoveries and the incontrovertible evidence to support them. His compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators. It brings to light the artefacts and inscribed stones left behind by the emperor’s fleet, the evidence of sunken junks along its route and the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, in thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea.
1421: The Year China Discovered the World is the story of a remarkable journey of discovery that rewrites our understanding of history. Our knowledge of world exploration as it has been commonly accepted for centuries must now be revised. 1421 is destined to become a classic work of historical detection.
See the “book descriptions” page for explanations of the criteria used in this listing.
Return to the used books shopfront
Use these scrollbars to navigate the attic…
You need javascript switched on for these scrollbars to work. If you can't see see them, there's a full set of links below.
Primary sources | anthologies | anononymous | facsimile | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Secondary sources | journals & partworks | author unknown | exhibition guides & ephemera | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | Mc | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Browse by subject | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Reference books | Reference index | general reference | bibliographies | biographical dictionaries | catalogues: auctions | catalogues: exhibitions | catalogues: museums & collections | chronology & dating | genealogy & heraldry | guides & gazetteers | lexical: concordances, dictionaries, glossaries | maps & atlases | medievalism | name & place-name studies | pass notes & study guides | numismatics
Medievalism | main page | general non-fiction | reference books | biography & autobiography | travelogues | arcana | folklore | arts and crafts | kid's books | fiction | poetry | drama | humour
Other stuff | browse by publisher | browse by series | browse by language | gift books | kids' stuff | incomplete sets | shop returns | signed copies | unused bargains | useful non-medieval | new books (with Amazon links)
medievalbookshop
Visit the design & typesetting service
Books
The small print
Cookie policy | Privacy | Access
Using any of the buttons below will set cookies on your computer:
