Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Gavin Menzies is a charming, seductive, inventive story teller, but his book is just an elaborate literary hoax, and belongs on the fiction list. Gavin claims he has real, tangible evidence. Not true. Just check out for yourself some of the sources he cites. His own sources do not support the claims he makes. For example, at pp 201-2(hardcover) Gavin writes of a pulley "for hoisting sails" found on the beach at Neahkahnie, Oregon, about 60 miles south of me. I drove down there and spoke with the curator of the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. He had talked with Gavin in 2002 and Wayne told Gavin the pulley had already been carbon dated (in 1993) to 1590; and, the wax was beeswax for candles, prized and common cargo for the Spanish trade galleons that traveled between the Philippines and the west coast of North America, on a regular basis, between 1564 and 1815. The pulley was from one of those Manila galleons. In his book (page520) Gavin lists as a source "Tales of the Neahkahnie Treasure", prepared by the Nehalem Valley Historical Society Treasure Committee, 1991, published by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. It clearly states (p5) the beeswax, not as Gavin states "paraffin wax" a hydrocarbon product, had been carbon dated to 1681. Further, a pollen study of the beeswax had revealed its source was northern Luzon in the Philippines where there was a certain variety of shrub the bees visited for pollen. Gavin ignores the inconvenient facts, hides them from the reader, and writes as if he is just waiting for the lab to confirm the finding of some possible real Chinese evidence. It's not possible, as Gavin well knows, the lab work has long since been done and it does not fit his time frame. For another example consider the Bimini road story. Gavin devotes a short chapter to this (pp265-277). The Bimini road is a long standing hoax in its own right. Gavin claims all the experts agree it is man made. Not true. He only cites one "expert", David D. Zink, who was not a scientist, rather a former English teacher, a Cayce discple, intrigued with megalithic (big rock) structures and with the origins of myths. All the real experts know it is a natural geologic formation. Just by coincidence I noticed a timely article by Dr. Eugene A. Shinn, a geologist with USGS, in the Jan/Feb 2004 Skeptical Inquirer, pp38-44; "Natural submerged beachrock off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas has been deemed a remmant of Atlantis by the faithful since the 1960s. In spite of geological research demonstrating the stones are natural, 'true believers' continue to be drawn by the strong 'force field'." Take a look at that article and see if you can still believe the nonsense Gavin writes. I could go on and on. Open any page and you will encounter nonsense. Gavin cites sources to be sure, but, if you take the time to read the claimed source material, you will invariably find it doesn't support what he writes. Gavin is desperate for some real, tangible evidence, and he simply ignores or misstates his own source material, and writes whatever he wishes, whatever he thinks may convince the reader his grand fantasy is true. The book is a hoax and belongs on the fiction list.