Two exciting new books about seafaring exploration and discovery promise readers, especially history buffs and armchair sailors, pleasant diversion and topics for stimulating thought.
Although their subjects are related, each book tells quite a different story.
In "Captain Cook: A Legacy Under Fire," Vanessa Collingridge offers evidence that Australia was known to exist long before the time of Capt. James Cook, the 18th-century British explorer who is generally credited with its discovery. And author Gavin Menzies attempts to rewrite pre-Columbian history in his book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America."
Collingridge, a journalist and Fellow of the British Royal Geographical Society, says she has long been an admirer of Cook, the naval officer who led three expeditions to the Pacific and Southern oceans and is credited with discovering Australia — the "legacy under fire" of her book.
In the late 1800s, George Collingridge, a well-educated engraver and the author's distant cousin, left Europe and settled in Australia. He became obsessed with the colony's history and devoted plenty of time and money to his research and investigation. By 1895, he had written a book, "The Discovery of Australia," in which he proposed that the land was visited by Europeans before Cook.
Many of George Collingridge's conclusions were based on his study of 15th-century documents, particularly the French "Dieppe Maps." These, he concluded, were copies of earlier maps made by Portuguese navigators. He knew of other maps, made by Dutch explorers who by 1606 had charted all but the east coast of Australia.
One of the Dieppes — the "Nicholas Desliens' Map" — is reproduced in "Captain Cook" and shows what was known of the world in 1566. It clearly shows the Malay Peninsula and Java. To Java's south is a land mass labeled "Java la Grande," whose position roughly corresponds to Australia's.
Although it was evident that somebody had known about the existence of Australia long before Cook arrived in 1768, Australians of George Collingridge's day tried to maintain a British identity and were unwilling to concede that anyone but Cook had discovered their land.
George Collingridge's book was unpopular. His findings were disputed by government officials and by Cardinal Moran, the Archbishop of Sydney. Moran claimed that a Spaniard, Fernandez de Quiros, had in 1606 discovered Australia, making it divinely ordained to be a Catholic nation.
Australians deemed that theory as preposterous, an attitude reflected in their rejection of George Collingridge, who also was Catholic.
The 34 chapters of "Captain Cook" alternate between a biography of Cook and one of George Collingridge.
Vanessa Collingridge has done an exceptional service to history and to her relative with this book. It leaves no doubt that Cook did not discover Australia, a fact Australians lately have begun to accept.
Meanwhile, three centuries before Cook, Emperor Zhu Di of China sent a large fleet of ships on a mission to "the end of the Earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and to "unite the world in Confucian harmony."
In "1421," Menzies contends that this fleet visited America 70 years before Columbus. And he goes to great lengths to make his case.
The fleet was at sea for more than two years. When it returned, Zhu Di was out, replaced by a regime that established an isolationist policy for China — one that would last for centuries. According to Menzies, the fleet's records were destroyed, deep-water shipbuilding was discontinued, and most of the knowledge acquired was lost.
Yet Menzies believes not only that the fleet arrived in America before Columbus, but that it circumnavigated the globe 100 years before Magellan, discovered Antarctica, and reached Australia 350 years before Cook.
He also claims that during this voyage, animals and plants from China were established elsewhere and survived, and that some plants native to the New World were taken back to China.
Menzies says it took 15 years to research and write his book, during which he visited 120 countries and more than 900 libraries and museums. He asserts he has been able to reconstruct the various voyages by analyzing their circumstances and routes. From ancient maps he infers scads of information and details that in turn explain other facts.
He draws on the existence of wrecked ships and purported shipwrecks, and the remnants of gear, anchors and other debris discovered in various locations. However, proof that these artifacts were from the fleet — or even Chinese — always proves elusive. Nowhere in the book's 500-plus pages is there one technically accurate depiction of a Chinese sailing ship.
Among Menzies' evidence is a comparison of the calls of the common rooster of South America ("ki-ki-ri-ki") with that of Europe ("cock-a-doodle-doo"). In China, a rooster crows "ki-ki-ri-ki." There are many more similar examples.
The author makes educated guesses and plausible-sounding conclusions, but many readers will be unconvinced without more solid evidence. Nevertheless, the book is still of interest, if for no reason other than its singular approach.
Menzies must be commended for his literary talents. But his historical accuracy is, at the least, suspect.
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