Eonix Papers

Gavin Menzies: mad as a snake – or a visionary?
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/08/2008

His first book claimed that the Chinese discovered America. Now, in a controversial sequel, Gavin Menzies says they also sparked the Renaissance

The author of 1421 is at it again. As to whether the Chinese discovered America, one could remain open, save only to consider that the question is futile. The Indians discovered America, and (probably) the Phoenicians rediscovered it.

As to the Renaissance, a simple question lingers: why then was there no Renaissance in China?
However, it is always useful to pursue lines of diffusion.

That said, the study of the eonic effect will clarify the endless efforts to derive the causal explanation for the rise of the modern (which is not the same as the Renaissance).

It is important not to feed this false hope (of the Chinese perhaps) that a culture that wishes to deviate from modernity without its democratic tradition was really the source of the modern transformation. It is a fantasy that will crash.
The study of the eonic effect will help to show that the question has been muddled by Eurocentrism, so the confusion is understandable.