Jim Luce recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet Found in Japan. The title makes it sound like a new discovery. Not so much. The site of the “lost fleet” was discovered in the 1970s, while the wreckage of the lost fleet was located in 2000. Maritime archaeologist Jim Delgado wrote about the discovery in his book, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada, in 2008. The paperback edition was published last summer. It is a fascinating story.
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Thanks to Irwin Bryan and Alaric Bond for the passing article along.
Fascinating search! What clausterphobic scuba dives those must be; in dark, cold murky water, digging down through two meters of mud…
It irks me as well, when jouralists treat certain findings or studies as “new” just because it’s new to them. (As a retired RN and former data manager in a cancer research program, I see this all the time in the field of medicine. Researchers spend their entire career working on something and some well-meaning diletante shouts “Look at this new discovery!” As an author, it also reminds me of the stories of a “new” writer’s “overnight” success. Ha!)
On one hand I felt exactly the same way. On the other, the story was new to me and found it interesting. So while I am not impressed by Jim Luce as a journalist, I am happy to hear of the story.
If Luce had only written the article as “maritime archaeologist Jim Delgado was promoting his book, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada, which reveals a fascinating piece of history,” I would have had no problem with it at all.