I almost bought this when I saw it in Blackwell's,
because my history book shelf is still sadly lacking in Chinese history. The blurb on the back of the book made some quite extraordinary claims, but plenty of good history has taken me by surprise before. I'm glad I read about it elsewhere first.

www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World/dp/0553815229/
To save you having to click, it's about some Chinese explorer discovering the Americas before Columbus, and Australia as well.

I was saved from potential future embarrassment by this:
www.amazon.co.uk/Invented-Knowledge-History-Science-Pseudo-religions/dp/1861894309/

The moral of the story is: always check the credentials of any author before you read a purportedly factual book - often history books are quite overtly crackpot, but some of these crackpots are quite clever. The most disturbing thing about this one is that it turns up on shop shelves alongside proper academic textbooks.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 1 Dec 2011, 22:10, 2 replies)

I not going to read the books you've referenced
for too many reasons to list here.
But your post did remind me that when I was a kid, Velikovsky's books were filed right in the astronomy section at the City Library. Because of that it somehow gave his theory a certain credibility, even though I kind of knew he was a crackpot.
( P-MONKE We're all fucked, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 1:09, closed)

If you want a seriously insane re-writing of history:
Sadly given far too much credit in Russia.
(Kitty Fantastico "Dwarf, Anorexic and In a Fight ", Fri 2 Dec 2011, 9:20, closed)