The Great Wall China Against The World 1000 Bc Ad 2000 First Paperback Edition Julia Lovell by Julia Lovell 9780802142979, 9781555848323, 0802142974, 155584832X instant download after payment.

But behind the wall’s intimidating exterior—and the myths that have built up around it—is a complex history that has both defined & undermined China. Author Julia Lovell has written a new & important history of the Great Wall that guides the reader through the conquests & cataclysms of the Chinese empire, from the second millennium BC to the present day.

In recent years, the Wall has become an ever more potent symbol of Chinese nationalism, of a determination to resist foreign domination. But how successful was the Wall in reality, & what was its real purpose? Was it a precursor, albeit on a huge scale, of the Berlin Wall—a barrier designed to keep its population in as much as undesirables out? 

Lovell looks behind the modern mythology of the Great Wall, uncovering a three-thousand-year history far more fragmented & less illustrious than its crowds of visitors imagine today. The story of the Wall winds through that of the Chinese state & the frontier policy that defined it, through the lives of the millions of individuals who supported, criticized, built, & attacked it.