The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Canto original series) [Paperback]

Arthur Waldron (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 052142707X | ISBN-13: 978-0521427074 | Publication Date: January 31, 1992

The Great Wall of China is renowned as one of the most impressive and intriguing man-made structures on earth. It is also the subject of an awesome mythology, embedded in both learned and popular imaginations, which has grown up and now obscured the historical record. Even the maps which chart the Wall's position offer erroneous accounts of a phenomenon which has never been accurately surveyed. Arthur Waldron reveals that the notion of an ancient and continuously existing Great Wall, one of modern China's national symbols and a legend in the eyes of the West, is in fact a myth. His fascinating account reveals the strategic and political context for the decision to build walls as fortified defences, and explores its profound implications for nomadic and agricultural life under the Ming dynasty. Taking up the insights offered into more recent Chinese politics, the book concludes with a searching investigation of the Wall's new meanings in the myths - departing from that history - fostered in our own century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

China's modern rulers have nurtured the popular myth that the Great Wall of China is a single, continuous barrier built in the third century B.C. and surviving to the present. Actually, as Princeton historian Waldron demonstrates in a landmark study, most of what we today call the Great Wall was built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Despotic, palace-reared Ming rulers, fearful of a potential invasion by Mongols and other nomads, chose wall-building over trade or diplomatic relations. But the Ming fortifications, like the French Maginot Line, proved ineffective: Manchu warriors entered China in 1644, captured Peking and established the Ch'ing dynasty, a vast multiethnic empire which lasted until 1912. The Great Wall became a symbol of failure and irrelevance. Its recent transformation into China's unofficial national symbol is an enigma deftly unraveled in Waldron's investigation, one of the few books that change our basic assumptions about China. Illustrations. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The Great Wall is a powerful symbol of China's national tradition and historical continuity, a monumental defensive barrier supposedly built more than 2000 years ago to keep out Central Asian nomadic aggressors. However, as Waldron demonstrates in this learned and lively work of scholarly iconoclasm, the notion of a Great Wall is a historical myth developed over the past few centuries. Carefully examining the history of wall building in China, particularly during the Ming dynasty (1369-1644), he suggests that domestic political conflict, not cultural or ecological factors, determined why and when defensive walls were built. In examining the economic and political-military interactions between the nomads of the steppe and Chinese court officials, Waldron probes deeply into basic questions of China's national identity. A superb scholarly work that belongs in all academic and larger public collections. History Book Club selection.
- Steven I. Levine, Duke Univ . , Durham, N.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052142707X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521427074
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > History > Ancient > China

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Myths busted, thoughts provoked, February 28, 2007

By 

Mike Daplyn (Totescore, Isle of Skye, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Canto original series) (Paperback)

It's a shame in some ways that Arthur Waldron published this book in 1990, just as the world order was starting to change in ways that would have added even greater force to some of his arguments. For this is a remarkable book, with a breadth that goes far beyond its notional, even if gigantic, physical subject.

At a purely descriptive-historical level, Waldron debunks most if not all of the myths about the Wall. So far from being an eternal barrier between China and barbarism, created by Chin Shih Huang Ti and sustained by every subsequent dynasty, the early Wall (if it existed at all) was an outgrowth of an already ancient Chinese tradition of building defensive walls, mostly against each other. The really successful dynasties, like the early and middle Tang, built no walls at all; their preferred approach to dealing with troublesome nomads was a combination of bribes, flattery (both offered from a position of strength) and massacres conducted by flying columns of light cavalry. Even in the earlier years of the Ming dynasty, China could still produce a steppe general like Wang Yueh, who for speed, wiliness and ruthlessness matches any Indian fighter of the American West. The Wall as we know it was mainly a 16th century AD creation of the later Ming, who were bankrupt militarily and paralysed by internal factionalism in which proponents of a unipolar cultural-supremacist stance always had the moral upper hand. Unable to fight in the field, and ideologically debarred from using the Tang arts of suasion, the Ming had no choice but to build, at vast cost, works that the nomads could always get round in the end. It is astonishing that the Ming survived the resurgence of Mongol power that prompted the construction of the Great Wall we know; the chronic disunity of the Mongols with the enfeeblement of the line of Chingis had far more to do with it than fortifications manned by peasant militias. In the end it was a new set of nomads, the Manchu, who finally solved the `barbarian problem' by out-Mongoling the Mongols from the Pacific to Xinjiang and then incorporating China in their empire. Geographically, modern China, with its vast territories `beyond the Wall', is their legacy.

Where Waldron goes far beyond a historical recitation, and where he has most to say that is relevant to our own times, is in his analysis of the Ming preconceptions and internal politics that led to the building of the Wall. China was for millennia the superpower of East Asia and Chinese thinking about the world order was always basically unipolar (a luxury the USA has only enjoyed since 1990), dictated by their geographic location at one end of Eurasia, remote from any comparable agrarian power. The unipolar stance, however, permitted at least in principle a diversity of views about the means appropriate and permissible for ensuring China's safety and dominance. The great divide in the 15th-16th century Ming courts was between the pragmatists, who favoured a policy on the Tang model - bribes and flattery backed by force - and the Sino-supremacists who saw any engagement with non-Chinese as cultural (which could easily be represented as political) treason. Waldron draws comparisons with the paralysis of French policy between WW1 and WW2 that led to the construction of France's Great Wall - the Maginot Line. Had he written ten years later, he might have found valid parallels in post-Soviet US policy. There is a creepy similarity between the neo-con think-tanks of Washington and the private literati schools of Nanjing, each arrogating to themselves a monopoly of ideological purity and true patriotism, and rigidly opposed to policies of engagement. It doesn't do to push this (or any) historic parallel too far - the US has not (so far) succumbed to the military bankruptcy that stymied an engagement policy by the late Ming or Third Republic France (the velvet glove must always have an iron fist inside), but even that could follow if US public opinion swings severely against use of American troops abroad. Then what? The Great ABM Shield of America (incredibly expensive, round which the barbarians always found a way in the end ...)?

This is not an especially easy book to read, particularly in the sections where Waldron dives into the cauldron of late Ming palace politics; it requires some concentration to remember who's who, and on behalf of which standpoint (pragmatist or supremacist) they were (often literally) backstabbing their opponents. However, it's well worth the effort for the light it throws on a major phenomenon in human cultural history, whether or not you buy into any modern resonances.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GREAT HISTORICAL GUIDE, August 25, 2007

By 

W. A. Lowry (Sacramentoi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Canto original series) (Paperback)

Researched in excruciating detail, with almost 600 footnotes, this book describes how and why the Great Wall was built. Not always the reasons you would think. The Wall is apparently still a mystery as to its extent and location. Text is readable, graphics are barely adequate for the purpose. but this is the most scholarly book I have seen on the subject. Not a coffee table book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not quite so mysterious, July 11, 2008

By 

usabear "eclectic one" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Canto original series) (Paperback)

Arthur Waldron's "The Great Wall of China: from History to Myth" is a well-researched and scholarly attempt to clarify the existence and meaning of the construction dubbed "the Great Wall", mainly by Westerners. Waldron actually offers little on pre-Ming wall-building in China, rather choosing to focus on the various court intrigues and challenges to Ming preeminence in mainland east Asia that led to wall-building by the Ming. Waldron then goes forward to assess various modern views of the wall and its utility in defining the Chinese Nation.

Contrary to what many reviewers assert, the Chinese have not held that the so-called "Great Wall" existed in totality since the Qin Dynasty. Waldron does indicate this point at various places in his book, but the overall impression that one might get is still somewhat muddled. Waldron dismisses early accounts of the extent of the wall by Western visitors, but doesn't really offer evidence to support the dismissal - rather relying on a heavy dose of scepticism to support his own views. Despite his scepticism, recent archeological research has provided us with extensive data on the various walls, and while one must certainly dismiss reports (by Westerners) that anything like single wall effectively encircled northern China, the various walls were, and are, far more extensive than many would have us believe.

As to the effectiveness of the various walls, it appears that where they were used in conjunction with a reasoned policy of interaction with peoples on both sides of the structure, they were quite effective in delineating the geographic space claimed by the various builders. Unfortunately, the policies associated with wall-building were all to frequently unreasoned. Court intrigues related to power struggles often undermined policies which might have led to good relations with peoples outside the wall. These problems frequently were a product of Literati efforts to define the culture and exclude peoples from this culture. Combined with concerns about how power might accrue to those associated with successful border policy, these efforts led to ongoing impasses about whether or not to trade or interact with foreigners, whether to implement antagonistic actions against them, or whether to build fortifications or walls in attempts to control access. Waldron goes on at great length about these debates and intrigues and the resulting ineffective policies.

When dicussing modern views of the "Great Wall", the genesis and purpose of utilizing the term should be carefully assessed. Waldron does cover these aspects, but emphasizes those that express his own positions. Clearly, the original utilization of the term had a Western genesis, but there is no question that the term has been used to effect by modern Chinese leaders. Waldron's final assessment is carefully couched so that he does not go too far out on a limb as to the future of the Chinese nation, but he unquestionably was harboring doubts. One wonders about his views in the 20 years since the book was written.

In sum, the book is most useful in gaining insight into Ming court activities associated with foreign relations and wall-building, and as such is a recommended and useful addition to the historiography of China.