Customer Reviews

The Great Wall Revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon's Head

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Having lived in both China and Mongolia for some years I was looking for more in my Great Wall book than Genghis Khan's marauding hordes and moon myths, and found it in "The Great Wall Revisited".

Author William Lindesay has come up with a unique approach to tell the Wall's story. He integrates its history, strategy, construction, function etc. with the story of its photographic exploration, from c. 1870. The Wall comes over not just as a pile of mud, stone and brick, but a structure that's attracted a procession of explorers, adventurers, thieves, photographers and travellers. Through their photos and his, we see how it's changed over the last century. Vintage photographs are "updated" or "rephotographed".

At the core of the book are some 70 or so old and new photographs which starkly evidence how nature and man have done to the world's greatest defence work. How he managed to find scores of remote sites is testament to his field experience, and he gives us snippets along the way. The comparisons produced are grouped into seven regions, which is nice because you can see the diversity of the Wall's construction and its varied host landscapes, and start to appreciate that "The Great Wall" as a name is quite misleading, as it also includes watchtowers, fortresses, gates, engraved stones and even bales of reeds!!! that were readied to ignite when the enemy was sighted.

What are the stories behind the old pictures? Lindesay writes elegant essays on the Wall's early explorers. Especially gripping are the exploits of Aurel Stein, who photographed the Han Great Wall near Dunhuang in 1907, and William Geil who we learn was the first explorer of the entire Wall, in 1908. As an archive the collection is amazing. He is also quite a photographer himself.

This is not a coffee table book. It's more a well-illustrated book: it has around 50 thousand words. History lessons are delivered painlessly; scholarly findings presented with unpretentious vocabulary.

The book should appeal to China enthusiasts, students of the region's history and heritage conservation and, of course, travellers who've walked on the Wall themselves. Strangely enough, for the author is a geographer, the only downside of the book is its lack of detailed maps.

I just love books with old photos (in this case 1900-1940) and modern photos taken at exactly the same spot. If you have the same interest this is a must buy book. The author has been so careful to find exactly the right spot. I really appreciate that effort a lot. It is fun to compare how things have changed. (Note that if you want a detailed history of the wall, this is not the book for you.)

If you are aware of any other good rephotography books, please add a comment about their titles! Thanks.

This book is a wonderful book, full of pictures, that is invaluable for middle school students studying ancient civilizations who probably have never been to China before, and need these 'visuals.' Thank you for creating a great resource, as well as a great coffee table book! I have been to China, and have stood on the Great Wall, so it provides an 'ice breaker.'

This book definitely tops my collection of books on the Great Wall of China. Its main attraction is the painstaking effort of William Lindesay to search out old photos of the Wall and then physically locate the exact (or almost exact) spot where they were taken - some of them more than a century ago. There is even one photo, where he says that he cannot stand on the exact spot because a large modern building now stands there. The meticulous care and industry of the author certainly manifest the extraordinary love he has for the subject.

Many of the old photos had revealed the obvious physical erosion over the centuries, but what pained me most was to see the destruction by people - wanton and wasteful. The somewhat blatant commercialisation of some of the sites, I hope will be kept to a minimum. Now that UNESCO had dedicated the Great Wall as a World Heritage item, I trust the Chinese people and Government will do their utmost best to preserve it for posterity. This book will most probably help to spread the message throughout the length and breadth of China.

I purchased this book for my mother who is going to China. It gave a great overview of the sites she will be seeing.