On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China "to the ends of the earth". 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 the Chinese had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had colonized America before the Europeans and had transplanted in America and other countries the principal economic crops that have fed and clothed the world.

Originally published in Great Britain by: Transworld Publishers. 2002.

Chinese nomenclature -- Introduction -- I. Imperial China. The emperor's grand plan ; A thunderbolt strikes ; The fleet sets sail -- II. The guiding stars. Rounding the cape ; The new world -- III. The voyage of Hong Bao. Voyage to Antarctica and Australia -- IV. The voyage of Zhou Man. Australia ; The Barrier Reef and the Spice Islands ; The first colony in the Americas ; Colonies in Central America -- V. The voyage of Zhou Wen. Satan's Island ; The treasure fleet runs aground ; Settlement in North America ; Expedition to the North Pole -- VI. The voyage of Yang Qing. Solving the riddle -- Portugal inherits the crown. Where the earth end ; Colonizing the new world ; On the shoulders of giants -- Epilogue: The Chinese legacy -- Postscript -- Appendices. Chinese circumnavigation of the world 1421-3: synopsis of evidence ; The determination of longitude.