Gavin Menzies’ ‘1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance’ is a parody of historical scholarship that purports to offer insight into the critical stages of early global modernity. Cast in a flawed East/West paradigm that has shaped much of Euro-American scholarship, 1434 enjoys significant popular and political readership internationally and eclipses recent scholarship that would allow a more nuanced and integrated understanding of our shared early modern history. This review article challenges the Sinocentrism of Menzies and others, and suggests a broader Eurasian perspective for understanding the interplay of societies that defined innovation and creativity at the start of the modern era.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adshead, S.A.M.1993. Central Asia in World History, New York .
2.
Allsen, Thomas . 2001. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, Cambridge .
3.
Baltrusaitis, Jurgis . 1955. Le Moyen Age Fantastique: Antiquités et Exotismes dans l’Art Gothique, Paris .
4.
Brotton, Jerry . 2002. The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, New York . http://cape-slavery-heritage.iblog.co.za/2008/10/09/how-europeans-gained-their-modern-knowledge-and-covered-the-tracks/ (Accessed in 2009).
5.
Chaffee, John . 2008. ‘Muslim Merchants and Quanzhou in the Late Yuan-Early Ming: Conjectures on the Ending of the Medieval Muslim Trade Diaspora’, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce, and Human Migration, Weisbaden : 115–32.
6.
da Conti, Niccolò . 2004. Chandeigne (ed.), Le voyage aux Indes. Translated and printed by John Frampton in 1579 (Spanish), London , 1968 edition.
7.
Duchesne, Ricardo . 2002. ‘ Between Sinocentrism and Eurocentrism: Debating Andre Gender Frank’s Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age ’, Science & Society, vol. 65(4): 428–63 .
8.
Eaton, Richard M.1993. ‘Islamic History as Global History’, in Michael Adas (ed.), Islamic & European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order, Philadelphia : 1–36.
9.
Frank, André Gunder . 1992. The Centrality of Central Asia, Amsterdam .
10.
Frank, André Gunder . 1998. Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Berkeley .
11.
Graham, Mark . 2006. How Islam Created The Modern World, Beltsville, MD .
12.
Hobson, John M.2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, Cambridge .
13.
Howard, Deborah . 2000. Venice & the East: Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100–1500, New Haven.
14.
Komaroff, Linda and Carboni, Stefano (eds). 2002. The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353, New Haven .
15.
Lach, Donald F.1968. Japan in the Eyes of Europe: The Sixteenth Century, Chicago .
16.
Lane, George . 2003. Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-century Iran: A Persian Renaissance, London .
17.
Lewis, David Levering . 2008. God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of the Modern World, 570–1215, New York .
18.
Mack, Rosamond E.2002. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600, Berkeley .
19.
Menzies, Gavin . 2008. 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, New York .
20.
Morgan, Michael Hamilton . 2007. Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientist, Thinkers, and Artists, Washington .
21.
Poggio, Bracciolini . 1723. De varietate Fortunae, book iv (c.1445), ed. by Abbé Oliva , Paris .
22.
Pomeranz, Kenneth . 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton .
23.
Pouzyna, I.V.1935. L’Italie et les Dèbuts de la Renaissance, XIII–XIV Siècles, Paris .
24.
Saliba. George . 2007. Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, Cambridge .
25.
Vignaud, Henry . 1902. Toscanelli and Columbus, New York .
26.
Wang, Tai Peng . Zheng He’s Delegation to the Papal Court of Florence. http://www.gavinmenzies.net/pages/evidence-1421/content.asp?EvidenceID=463 (Accessed in 2008)
27.
Wong, Bin . 2000. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience, Ithaca .
