Saturday, December 30, 2006

_1421: The Year China Discovered America_ Notes

About 100 pages in. I like the detail and evocation of medieval China; lots of fascinating little bits and pieces. The problem--which may just be my bias, knowing that much of the info has been discredited--is that he seems very ready to make assumptions or leap to certain conclusions. E.g. certain phrases like "Without that experience [of sailing the same possible routes the Chinese fleet had taken], I could never have followed the elusive trail of evidence across the globe that revealed the incredible journeys made by the great Chines treasure fleets. If I was able to state with confidence the course a Chinese fleet had taken, it was because the surviving maps and charts and my own knowledge of the winds, currents and sea conditions told me the route as surely as if there had been a written record of it."

I like the magical realism of an idea like this: namely, that he could have, by knowing the winds, currents and sea conditions, been able to plot the course so precisely. I'm sure there's some element of truth to that (though there's also the question of how much those would have changed in 600 years. I really don't know the answer to that)--you'd be able to infer the likelihood of one route over another. But it seems a leap into conjecture to claim that by knowing the winds etc. you'd be able to infer whether they went to a place or not. If they went there, one route might suggest itself as likelier than another, but that seems a rather big "if".

Of course, he's still talking about better-documented visits at this point, where there seems some evidence that they went to Africa etc. to corroborate his claims, so perhaps all he is claiming at this point is that he knows the likely route they would have taken, on these reasonably well-known trips. But he does mention an "elusive trail of evidence across the globe" that would seem to imply that he's making this claim about other, less well-documented trips as well. Problematic.

There's also a MR element to an earlier note of his, in which he mentions that looking at older maps, he can figure out the angle from which they approached the shoreline etc. because of his navigational experience. Kind of cool.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Hereafter....

I hereby declare this my recently read/seen or in the process of reading/seeing blog. I'll reserve actual commentaries for my main blog, but this is more by way of tracking stuff for myself...

So, recently scanned:

Woman Warrior
Adam, Eve and the Serpent (Elaine Paggels)
Evil Sisters (Bram Djikstra)
Goddess Within
Hero with a Thousand Faces

Recently read:

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Recently viewed:

Partway through Prison Break
Final Cut (Robin Williams as editor of others' lives in expiation of guilt he feels over a childhood mishap)
Battlestar Galactica (partway through season two)
Alias (up to end of season two)
Apocalypto
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Currently reading/scanning:

Fairy Faith in Celtic Cultures
Beginnins, Middles and Ends
How Great Generals Win (Bevin Alexander)
1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America
Stranger Things Happen (Kelly Link)
Politics: A conceptual approach

To read soon, I hope:

The Book of Lost Things
Lost Girls (Andrew Pyper)
Freakonomics
The Psychology of War