Alternative History 101

Historian Gavin Menzies recently visited NZ to promote his controversial bestseller 1421. One of the most contentious theories in the book is that NZ was mapped and settled by Chinese 3o0 years before the arrival of  Captain Cook, and that Maori are the result of interbreeding between these Chinese settlers and their Melanesian slaves. While Menzies’ theories have gained some ground with fellow researchers of early Chinese settlements, such as authors Paul Chiasson and Gary Geddes, and have a massive online following, most academics dismiss his claims as at the least pseudoscience, at the most “a disgrace” (Michael King in the Listener).