On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Its mission was "to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony.</p>

When it returned in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in China's long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. Also concealed was how the Chinese colonized America before the Europeans and transplanted in America and other countries the principal economic crops that have fed and clothed the world.</p>

Unveiling incontrovertible evidence of these astonishing voyages, 1421 rewrites our understanding of history. Our knowledge of world exploration as it has been commonly accepted for centuries must now be reconceived due to this landmark work of historical investigation.</p>

加文·孟席斯，英國皇傢海軍退伍軍官。1937年生於中國，兩年後因第二次世界大戰爆發始離開。1953年加入英國皇傢海軍，1957年在“鑽石”號驅逐艦上服役於地中海海域。1959年，在“紐芬蘭”號上擔任航海指揮官，服役於遠東海域。1960年調到“決心”號戰略導彈核潛艇，任作戰官。1968年擔任“鰮鯨”號潛艇艇長，被授予海軍中校，執行全球航行訪問任務。在皇傢海軍的服役期間，他曾率艦沿著世界上偉大的航海傢哥倫布、迪亞斯、卡布拉爾和達·伽馬的航綫行遍世界。退伍之後，他曾多次走訪中國與亞洲各國，專注於中國明代鄭和航海的調查與研究。

加文·孟席斯先生已婚，有二女，現寓居於倫敦北部。