“Astounding [Menzies] should get Nobel and Pulitzer prizes and a yacht full of lesser awards for his work He comes at his subjects like a mystery writer. You walk along the pathways of discovery with him. It is a joyous jaunt.”--San Bernardino Sun

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from Chi.na to “proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas.” When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor l'iad fallen, leaving China in political and economicchaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. And they colonized America before the Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that have since fed and clothed the world.

LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

LIST OF PLATES

CHINESE NOMENCLATURE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

I Imperial China

THE EMPEROR'S GRAND PLAN

A THUNDERBOLT STRIKES

Tide FLEETS SET SAIL

II The Guiding Stars

ROLINDING THE CAPE

THE NEW WORLD

III The Voyage of Hong Bao

VOYAGE TO ANTARCTICA AND AUSTRALIA

IV The Voyage of Zhou Man

AUSTRALIA

THE BARRIER REEF AND THE SPICE ISLANDS

THE FIRST COLONy IN THE AMERICAS

COLONIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA

V The Voyage of Zhou Wen

SATAN'S ISLAND

THE TREASLIRE FLEET RUNS AGROLIND

SETTLEMENT IN NORTH AMERICA

EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE

VI ThE Voyage of Yant Qing

SOLVING THE RIDDLE

VII Portusal Inherits the Crown

WHERE THE FARTH END

COLONIZING THE NEW WORLD

ON TIdE SHOLILDERS OF CIANTS

EPILOGUE: THE CHINESE LEGACY POSTSCRIPT

APPENDICES

CHINESE CIRCLIMNAVIC, ATION OF THE WORLD 1421-3: synopsis oF evidence

THE DETERMINATION OF LONCTUDE

NOTES

INDEX