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| The Great Wall: The Extraordinary Story of China's Wonder of the World | 
 enlarge | Author: John Man
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $8.93
You Save: $17.07 (66%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $7.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  (3 reviews)
Sales Rank: 265014
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0306817675
Dewey Decimal Number: 951
EAN: 9780306817670
ASIN: 0306817675
Publication Date: August 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Great Wall of China is a wonder of the world. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists take the five-mile journey from Beijing to climb its battlements. While myriad photographs have made this extraordinary landmark familiar to millions more, its story remains mysterious and steeped in myth. In this riveting account, John Man travels the entire length of the Great Wall and across two millennia to find the truth behind the legends. Along the way, he delves into the remarkable and complex history of China?from the country?s tribal past, through the war with the Mongols, right up to the modern day when the Great Wall is once more a commanding emblem of China, the resurgent superpower.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Read With Caution! January 4, 2009
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 Book! September 1, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"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!
 Thoroughly Engaging, Entertaining August 9, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
China, it seems, is a land that conjures much myth in the conscience of non-Chinese, and "the Great Wall," as historian John Man deftly illustrates, is one such fairy tale. To begin with: there is no wall. It simply 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 entirely 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 conception 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; a man on a serious mission in an often baffling, bizarre and not-so-serious country.
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, which is on the waiting list. With The Great Wall, don't expect to be bowled over with elegant prose, but do expect do come out knowing a great deal more about China's national symbol - and its national mindset - than just about anyone.
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