MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 01989cam a22003138a 45e0
001 009059534-3
005 20041219085538.0
008 020821s2002 enka 000 0 eng
015 $aGBA2-V4618
020 $a0593050789
035 0 $aocm50493895
040 $aUKM$cUKM$dGZM
043 $aa-cc---
050 00 $aG322$b.M457 2002
082 04 $a910.951$221
090 $aG322$b.M46 2002
100 1 $aMenzies, Gavin.
245 10 $a1421 :$bthe year China discovered the world /$cGavin Menzies.
246 30 $aFourteen twenty-one.
260 $aLondon ;$aNew York :$bBantam,$c2002.
300 $axix, 520 p. :$bill, maps ;$c24 cm.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 477-504) and index.
520 1 $a"On 8 March 1421 the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas' and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last over two years and circle the globe." "When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans."--Jacket.
651 0 $aChina$xHistory$yMing dynasty, 1368-1644.
650 0 $aDiscoveries in geography$xChinese.
650 0 $aVoyages around the world.
600 10 $aZheng, He,$d1371-1435$xTravel.
988 $a20030314
906 $0OCLC