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4.5
David Wallace gave us all the gift of a great debate on whether the Great Fleet of the Chinese Admiral, Cheng He---or some ships from it---reached the Americas early in the 15th century. One of his ships, the fabled Treasure Ship, was 444 feet long with nine masts, and the fleet as a whole was nautically way beyond what was sailing elsewhere.Some say the pattern of evidence is almost irrefutable that these 1400's ships from China brought to the Americas, particularly South America, many technologies and agricultural products we have attributed to the First Peoples. The evidence is indirect in early charts that can be interpreted to show a detailed knowledge of our coasts. Other evidence is genetic (DNA) similarities, as well as plants, agricultural practices, technologies, and some linguistic patterns. Putting this together with enthusiasm, passion, and argument makes for a fascinating book------but---but others, particularly academic scholars in fields such as biology, linguistics, cartography, and technology as enthusiastically, passionately, andt argumentatively disagree. They too have written a book.These books are available through Amazon. They have been reviewed, so I won't repeat here what's available through the book reviews.Wallace's splendid idea was a debate where each side could make its case with Wallace as the interviewer---not unlike a presidential debate---and some chance for refutations. The TV series has been made into a home video, "1421: The Year China Discovered America?"If you are fascinated by history, by the methods of historians, by sleuthing across centuries, and by the opportunities still flourishing for an amateur to think out of the box----you may play this video often each time seeing something new.I've read the books, but still found much new (or more clearly presented) in the series. It is GREAT family entertainment and family co-learning, too. So a big bowl of popcorn or whatever you like to munch, and enjoy.My only "complaint" is I would have liked more back-and-forth-and-back-and forth-and-back-and-forth but understand that probably was not practical for the video series format. (They did not convince each other, by the way...)
