List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; Note on romanization; 1. Introduction: what is the Great Wall of China?; Part I. First Considerations: 2. Early Chinese walls; 3. Strategic origins of Chinese walls; Part II. The Making of the Great Wall: 4. Geography and strategy: the importance of the Ordos; 5. Security without walls: early Ming strategy and its collapse; 6. Toward a new strategy: the Ordos crisis and the first walls; 7. Politics and military policy at the turn of the sixteenth century; 8. The second debate over the Ordos; 9. The heyday of wall-building; Part III. The Significance of Wall-Building: 10. The Great Wall and foreign policy: the problem of compromise; 11. The Wall acquires new meanings; Notes; Bibliography; Chinese and Japanese materials; Western materials; Glossary; Index.
Arthur Waldron reveals that the notion of an ancient and continuously existing Great Wall, is in fact a myth.
'Historical writing at its best, a brilliant and very readable account.' The Asia Society 'This book has a wisdom, a patience, and a confidence about it that enrich Waldron's wonderful knack for writing history.' History Book Club 'One of the few books that change our basic assumptions about China.' Publisher's Weekly
'Historical writing at its best, a brilliant and very readable account.' The Asia Society 'This book has a wisdom, a patience, and a confidence about it that enrich Waldron's wonderful knack for writing history.' History Book Club 'One of the few books that change our basic assumptions about China.' Publisher's 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. (Aug.)
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