1434 and all that

Damian Thompson has another well deserved, timely and to the point go at "Gavin Menzies’ drivel" in The Telegraph.

Every bookshop in Britain is presenting a book called 1434 by Gavin Menzies as a major history title. Like the Olympic spectacular, Menzies' book celebrates Chinese history. Its subtitle is: "The year a magnificent Chinese fleet sailed to Italy and ignited the Renaissance." But, like the Beijing firework display, it is not quite what it seems.

In fact, 1434, published by Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, is not a history book in any meaningful sense of the term. That is because, to put it bluntly, a magnificent Chinese fleet did not sail to Italy in 1434 – or, if it did, not a single eyewitness recorded this amazing event. Did the Venetians have their backs to the water when it slipped past?

Read more about this counterknowledge at... eh... Counterknowledge

Debunking

Thanks to Bede who made me aware of an interesting blog concerned with myths, particularly political ones it seems.

And as the latest article praises Damian Thompson's latest book, Counterknowledge, and Michael Barkun's A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, it is easy to recommend the site.

It is no downside that Kamm enjoys Chesterton.

Counterknowledge

Damian Thompson, my fav and not a little candid catholic exposer of Conspiracy Theories and Counterknowledge in general, is out with a new book.

In Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History, Damian takes on many of the latest, and a some of the older, claims on what's really going on behind the curtains, who's really in control, what really happened and all that and some more.

He has a big disadvantage, though. The website 9/11, The Bigger Picture and the Quest for Truth now reveals that Damian shares surname with the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson.


Say no more. Or read about it here.

If you check the comments you will also discover the amazing story of Oliver Panic. Even if historians in a millennium or two will presume that the name is pure invention .