''I asked when the section we visited was completed, and the guide said 1421. ''My wife, Marcella, and I were in Beijing for our 25th anniversary, in 1990, and we went to the Great Wall,'' he said, explaining the origins of his discovery.
The London papers have feverishly debated Menzies' radical thesis since its publication in November his book will finally arrive here in the New World later this week, accompanied by a huge publicity campaign from its American publisher, William Morrow. Riding the tube out to his house, I saw ''1421'' promoted on the billboards at the station stops, alongside Eminem's new album and J. Menzies' book, ''1421,'' boldly asserts that the Chinese discovered America 70 years before Columbus. What he had to say, his publicists had warned me in breathless e-mail messages, would make ''every history book in print obsolete.'' Dressed in a handsome sports jacket and tie, he cheerfully invited me into his stately Georgian house in the Canonbury section of London. A retired navy man with white hair, Menzies still has a hint of red in the eyebrows that frame his ocean-blue eyes.
''I've got it coming out of my eyes!'' His voice was filled with excitement, just as you'd expect from someone propounding one of the most revolutionary ideas in the history of history. ''The evidence is massive,'' said Gavin Menzies of his new theory.
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