Who Discovered America? The Untold History of the Peopling of the America (Hardcover, New)

Building on the startling revelations of his bestseller 1421, iconoclastic historian Gavin Menzies calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known "discoveries" of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus. In Who Discovered America? he combines meticulous research and an adventurer's spirit to reveal astounding new evidence of an ancient seagoing tradition that dates as far back as 130,000 years ago. Menzies offers a revolutionary new alternative to the Beringia theory of how humans crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, and provides a wealth of staggering claims, including: the ancient South American civilizations of the Olmec and Maya in Central and South America may have had direct origins and influences from Asia; Zheng He's fleets to the Eastern seaboard were pre-dated by thousands of years of other Chinese expeditions to the Americas. Also includes: Ancient maps in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., show that there must have been sustained and dedicated voyages to the New World by Chinese explorers from as early as 2200 BC; Huge Chinese settlements occupied (and made exploratory journeys from) Nova Scotia; Japanese, Korean, and even earlier European voyages pre-dated the explorations currently recorded by history; The great Kublai Khan's plans of conquest may have been much larger in scope than originally thought, and he may also have dispatched fleets to the Americas. Who Discovered America? is Menzies' magnum opus: a fascinating new account with astonishing implications for the history of mankind.