Ever the lightening rod for controversy, the UK author and amateur historian passed through Shanghai recently, on invitation from the Concordia International School. According to the school, they brought Menzies in as a guest speaker in hopes that he would inspire students to question accepted academic theories and challenge mainstream schools of thought – something that Menzies clearly fits the bill for.

Meeting over a cup of tea in Concordia’s brightly-lit boardroom before his talk, Menzies was smartly-dressed and charming – and of course, passionately self-assured with an unfaltering conviction. (In)famous for his bestselling books, 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, Menzies has fielded plenty of critics and detractors – some of whom have gone as far as calling his theories “nonsense.” Nevertheless, Menzies remains steadfast in his beliefs – and perhaps even more energized.

“[The critics] have done me a big favor,” he says. “And furthermore, we realize it. My most violent critic came from the University of Singapore, now the poor chap has been made redundant and no longer has a contract with the university. So his website has collapsed. We realized that this was a serious matter – he’s my best salesman and we did our best to get his website going again.”

Menzies became interested in history after he retired from the Royal Navy – an unlikely source for such academic upheaval. “Google has made each one of us a potential historian,” he says, explaining his belief that the practice of studying history has been completely revolutionized thanks to the internet. “I think we’re all now historians and we all have a phenomenal capacity to investigate the past. Traditional ways of producing history are over.”

Despite extensive criticism from the academic world, due to his inability to speak Chinese and lack of academic qualifications, Menzies has remained unyielding: “You no longer have to be an expert in anything to be a good historian. The disadvantage of being an expert is that you think you know it all. I realize I know nothing, absolutely nothing. I know my limitations and I do my best to recruit experts. We also have thousands of subscribers to our website who help us. It’s like I am a conductor of an enormous team.”

“I do not look for any evidence which destroys my case,” he says, in response to one of his largest criticisms – that he only looks for proof that supports his own ideas. “I solely concentrate on putting my case forward. I realize the historians will go mad when they see what I have written and will then do all the fact digging for me. I don’t need to waste any time on that.”

Furthermore, Menzies seems entirely unconcerned with the wider danger that revisionism poses, often referring to himself as a “flea irritating history.” “I don’t think it’s dangerous because I’m only upsetting academics and it is the public that counts,” he says. “[But] I can understand why they do get upset – I’m destroying their life’s work.”

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