New book claims China started the Renaissance

Submitted by Milica on Sun, 2008-06-08 15:12
“A sophisticated Chinese delegation visited Italy in 1434, sparked the Renaissance and forever changed the course of Western civilization." This is the premise of a controversial new book by Gavin Menzies 1421: The Year China Discovered the World.

In the book Menzies takes readers “aboard the remarkable Chinese fleet as it sails from China to Cairo to Florence, and then back across the world,” offering “further astonishing evidence that it was also Chinese advances in science, art, and technology that formed the basis of the European Renaissance and our modern world.”