Negative Positive
Title: Phony
Review: It is probable that the Chinese (and the Japanese) sailed the Pacific before Europeans did, so I was interested in reading Gavin Menzies book. Unfortunately, the evidence he has to validate his thesis that great Chinese treasure fleets sailed the world and charted the coasts of America in 1421-23 doesn't stand up. Any attempt to independently check his evidence shows that it is based on old anecdotes, extracts from websites devoted to the paranormal, and so forth. Even his citation of the locations of wreck sites is full of errors and the wrecks that he cites as being "very old" have turned out to be no more than a couple of hundred years old.
Is the review positive or negative? 