Customer Reviews

The Great Wall: The Extraordinary Story of China's Wonder of the World

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

China, it seems, is a land that conjures much myth among non-Chinese, and "the Great Wall," as historian John Man deftly illustrates, is one such myth. To begin with: there is no wall; it doesn't exist. Rather there are a whole series of walls, built at different times, by different rulers, of different materials, and for a whole host of different reasons. This assortment of barriers was never effective at keeping out the marauding barbarian hordes, chiefly because it was never intended to do that. And those barbarian hordes, as Man explains, were never that barbaric to begin with. In fact, just about every notion you ever had about the divide(s) is most likely dead wrong, and part of the pleasure of reading this book is finding out the truth.

Man's style is a bit workmanlike in places, but occasionally it glimmers with poetic description. He's a researcher - an expert on Mongolia, for example - and an explorer, and his tone is intelligent and down to earth. He tracks the walls' sections through most of the country, and his travels, supplemented by his copious research and excellent knowledge of ancient Chinese and Mongolian history, are really fun to read. Here's a man on a serious mission in an often baffling, bizarre, and not-so-serious nation.

I really liked this book. I learned heaps and was entertained while doing it. In fact, I went out and bought another one of his books, The Terracotta Army, also very good. With The Great Wall, don't expect to be bowled over with elegant prose, but do expect do come away knowing a great deal more about China's national symbol - and its national mindset - than just about anyone.

Troy Parfitt, author of Why China Will Never Rule the World

"The Great Wall" by John Man is also a great book! Throughly loved it from the beginning to the end. It kind of felt like I had actually traveled the length of the actual walls (Yes - walls, it is not just one wall!). Author John Man, who has a way of making something that is historically complex come across as both interesting and entertaining; while at the same time, he manages to educate the reader.

This is one history book well worth reading. I was ignorant enough to think I knew a little something about Chinese history; I found that I knew nothing. This book is well researched and goes beyond just the physical building of the walls. The author manages to skillful inter-weave politics, history, culture, and related stories into a literary blueprint of the history of the walls. The book should be considered the ultimate authority on the history of the Great Wall of China; this is the gold standard that scholars and historians should use to study.

I highly recommend this book for all those readers interested in history, China or who want to learn something new. The book receives the American Authors Association's highest book rating of FIVE STARS! It also gets my personal approval!

John Man describes various aspects of the Great Wall, how it came into being, where it is, and also explains some aspects of Chinese history.
Yet ultimately the book disappoints in several ways. Overall it is nothing which has not been written about in a thousand other books, for example in 'The Great Wall' by Julia Lovell and many others. The meetings with modern day Chinese are the most interesting aspects of this book yet there are very few of them.
Therefore this books resembles less original research but seems to be more an armchair collection of facts and a rehash of what others have written about (like the 'lost' Roman legionaires etc.). For someone who has not yet read about the Great Wall this might be a nice primer.
Yet what ultimately makes me wonder about the qualifications of the author is his assertion that Zheng He, the Chinese Navigator, has founded colonies in Australia and South America. This is straight from Mr. Gavin Menzies '1421 - The Year China Discovered the World', a book which occupies the same shelf space as books on Ufologie and the Loch Ness Monster.

After 250 pages about the wall(s) and wall building, after learning of the incredible cost, loss of life and dubious benefits, this quote from Emir Muhammad of Qatar stays with you.

While millions of tourists visit the restored wall outside of Beijing, there are hundreds of miles of wall to be explored. Author, John Man visits many less famous and some virtually unknown segments. He travels to remote areas of China and Mongolia. In some places the walls provide dwelling or market places in others they are totally forgotten. John Man, as he does in his earlier book, Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome meets interesting people along the way who provide perspective on the 3000 year long phenomena of wall building.

My only criticism of the book is its layout and format which were undoubtedly economic decisions of the publisher. For me, there was a lot of flipping back and forth. It would have been good to have a map introducing each wall segment and the segment's photos placed along with it. Also, the pictures were wonderful and each too small for its page. Perhaps this could be reworked with more photos as a coffee table book.

I was very impressed with the perspective that Man was able to give on the long and complex history of China. I recommend this book for general readers, arm chair travelers and anyone interested in the history of China.

It's a cross between a travelogue and a history, both told in bits and snatches. Chinese place names fill these pages, some old and some new, with only poorly labeled maps to provide any help. Myths abound, some like the supposed pre-Columbian Chinese colonies in North America and Australia are simply stated as fact, others are a hodgepodge from various sources with caveats, but no weighing of sources. There are two plus factors, however. The first is the dispelling of yet other myths that the Wall is uniformly magnificent (much if in fact is rubble, earth mounds, willow palisades, etc.), that it can be seen from space (a ridiculous but widespread belief) and that it was more or less fully in place back in the days of the first emperor (most of its impressive parts are only five hundred years old). The second is the set of impressive photographs. The verdict? It should have been a third its size and included several really good maps of the Great Wall region.

I was enjoying this book despite the rather annoying writing style until I came to a single sentence that totally destroyed the author's credibility: "The colonies planted by Zheng He in Africa, the Americas and Australia languished and died." The author apparently accepts totally a theory that the overwhelming majority of scholars, both Chinese and Western, regard as that of a crackpot and charlatan. There is nothing wrong with mentioning the theory, but to do so without any warning in a footnote or otherwise is a disservice to his reader. If John Man is unaware of the controversy, that is unforgivable. If he is aware and just chooses to disregard conventional scholarship, not even alerting the reader to the fact that he is pushing a totally unproven theory, causes one to wonder what other unsubstantiated fantasies he may be putting over on us.

"The Great Wall" is another book by John Man which examines the history of a Chinese historical monument. Another book was focused on the Terra Cotta Army of the first emperor's tomb, this is a bigger story covering a larger period in the history of China.

There are many legends concerning the Great Wall, the silliest being that it can seen from space (a legend that continues to be cited by some people and whose origins lie with a 1932 Ripley's Believe it or Not column). The stories written by westerners are somewhat less compelling than those of the Chinese tell of the Great Wall and its construction. Throughout its history, the Great Wall has served as focal point of Chinese historical epics, the earliest of which date back to the Han period of 202 BC-220 AD. l.

The Great Wall is an appropriate symbol of Chinese history because it has been around in one form or another since there was a unified China. The first version being constructed by the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di. Many believe, due mainly to western propaganda, that the wall is entirely made of stone and looks much like the version of it familiar to those covering state visits to China. This section of wall, located near Beijing in Badaling was constructed as part of a series of fortifications by the Ming dynasty which was in power from 1368-1644. The first attempts at building a wall were much cruder. For much of its history (and the first emperor ruled around 221-206 BC), the wall was made of earth and was in some cases a mere 2 meters high. There are many walls and versions of walls that were constructed between the first attempts. Between 220-1368 the Chinese used a combination of local walls and walled cities to defend the northern frontier. These too are included in Man's account as part of the idea of a Great Wall. It was not until the Ming period where the Great Wall of today was built and this approach to defense became more effective. .

The effectiveness of the Great Wall or the series of walls that make it up varied, depending on the dynasty and how good it was in maintaining the defenses and the army. The establishment of the Mongol Yuan dynasty was a reflection not only of the divisions within the geographical area we define as China, but also the failure of the defenses like the Great Wall to hinder the invasion. Really the Ming Dynasty was the first to develop a real defense strategy using its own version of the Great Wall. However the greatest of Great Walls was no defense when Chinese generals were determined on a change of dynasties as was Wu Sangui in 1644 due to an almost total breakdown of authority. The Qing dynasty's establishment rendered the Great Wall more a symbol of the past and history of China than a effective approach to defense.

John Man's approach to telling the story of the Great Wall is an entertaining and informative mix of legend, history, archeology and travel writing. Man traces the route that the Great Wall takes across northern China, including his own travails along the journey and showing just how far (and how not so far) new China has come in embracing the 21st century. This is an excellent summary of the development of one of the world's wonders.