英國皇傢海軍退伍軍官。1937年生於倫敦，幾個月後被父母帶到中國。第二次世界大戰爆發後，迴到英國。1953年加入英國皇傢海軍；1957年在“鑽石”號驅逐艦上服役於地中海海域；1959年，在“紐芬蘭”號上擔任航海指揮官，服役於遠東海域；1960年，調到“決心”號戰略導彈核潛艇，任作戰官；1968年，擔任“鰮鯨”號潛艇艇長，被授予海軍中校軍銜，執行全球航行訪問任務。在皇傢海軍的服役期間，他曾率艦沿著偉大的航海傢哥倫布、迪亞斯、卡布拉爾和達·伽馬的航綫行遍世界。退伍之後，他曾多次走訪中國與亞洲各國，專注於研究鄭和率領的中國艦隊先於歐洲航海傢發現新大陸的傳奇旅程。

In his bestselling book 1421:The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies revealed that it was the Chinese that discovered America, not Columbus. Now he presents further astonishing evidence that it was also Chinese advances in science, art, and technology that formed the basis of the European Renaissance and our modern world. In his bestselling book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies presented controversial and compelling evidence that Chinese fleets beat Columbus, Cook and Magellan to the New World. But his research has led him to astonishing new discoveries that Chinese influence on Western culture didn't stop there. Until now, scholars have considered that the Italian Renaissance - the basis of our modern Western world - came about as a result of a re-examining the ideas of classical Greece and Rome. However, a stunning reappraisal of history is about to be published. Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that a sophisticated Chinese delegation visited Italy in 1434, sparked the Renaissance, and forever changed the course of Western civilization.After that date the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overturned and artistic conventions challenged, as was Arabic astronomy and cartography. Florence and Venice of the 15th century attracted traders from across the world. Menzies presents astonishing evidence that a large Chinese fleet, official ambassadors of the Emperor, arrived in Tuscany in 1434 where they met with Pope Eugenius IV in Florence. A mass of information was offered by the Chinese delegation to the Pope and his entourage - concerning world maps (which Menzies argues were later given to Columbus), astronomy, mathematics, art, printing, architecture, steel manufacture, civil engineering, military machines, surveying, cartography, genetics, and more. It was this gift of knowledge that sparked the inventiveness of the Renaissance - Da Vinci's inventions, the Copernican revolution, Galileo, etc. Following 1434, Europeans embraced Chinese intellectual ideas, discoveries, and inventions, which formed the basis of European civilization just as much as Greek thought and Roman law. In short, China provided the spark that set the Renaissance ablaze.