Product Description

Legendarily 2,200 years old and 4,300 miles long, China's Great Wall seems to be a confident physical statement made by an advanced civilization, anxious to draw a line between itself and the 'barbarians' at its borders. But behind the Wall's intimidating exterior, and the myths that have built up around it, lies a history far more fragmented and far less illustrious than its crowds of modern-day tourists might imagine. In this epic history exploring the conquests and cataclysms of the Chinese empire over the past 3,000 years, Julia Lovell restores a human dimension to this astonishing structure: examining the emperors who planned new phases of building; the people who constructed, lived and guarded the walls; and the millions who died - of overwork, starvation, cold and combat. "The Great Wall" is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand China's past, present and future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #349635 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"'Fascinating... From the book's title, one expects a history of the Great Wall, and in that Lovell does not disappoint. But she delivers much, much more.' Martin Jacques, Guardian 'A brilliant and ambitious study of the mythic status of China's enduring icon. Lovell's wall becomes a symbol of the Chinese people's oppression and China's uneasy relationship with the outside world.' Robert McCrum, Observer"

Jonathan Fenby, Observer
‘An excellent, fluent history of northern China... intriguing.’

Graham Hutchings, Literary Review
‘Lovell puts many of the Great Wall’s most important shibboleths to the sword... Few stones are left unturned.’

Customer Reviews

Outstanding!
This must rate as the most entertaining and erudite of the books on China I have read. Dr Lovell writes with an entertaining and dry sense of humour that makes her book a thoroughly good read. As well as containing a wealth of knowledge and insight into both Chinese history and culture, it gives the reader an insight into the Chinese mindset, both historically and in the present day. I cannot praise her style of writing enough, it is clear, concise, humourous and almost irreverent at times, - a book to be read again and again.

The Pot and the kettle: 'New' insights for China-bashers!
This book views China as a xenophobic state pitted against outer `barbarians' for three millennia. Some recent books have tried to correct this once widespread view, e.g.:
1. Valerie Hansen, Yale University, in The Open Empire, writes: `New evidence forces historians to re-examine the way in which Chinese history is conceived and organised. Was the Middle Kingdom perpetually hostile to non-Chinese foreigners, for example?
2. Joanna Waley-Cohen, New York University, in The Sextants of Beijing, comments: `even by the early 1800s, this kind of misdiagnosis was fast becoming a habit among a majority of Europeans arriving on China's shore.' and adds that `since earliest times, China has displayed no greater cultural chauvinism than most other societies.'
3. Victor Mair, Columbia University, in The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature writes: `China-watchers, and many Chinese themselves, have long accepted a Middle Kingdom ideology according to which this great East Asian Empire was allegedly sealed off from the rest of the world. Nothing is further from the truth.'

Lovell ignores all such works, since she seeks to restore and reinforce an image of China as an age-old xenophobic state.

Father Evariste Huc wrote in 1855:
`most of the European books that treat of China, jest about this name (Zhongguo), and boldly infer from it, that the Chinese are completely ignorant of geography; whilst it would be nearer the truth to say, that we ourselves are ignorant of their traditions'.
His contemporary, Klaproth, Prussian Professor of Asiatic languages and literature exclaimed:
`I have no need to refute the absurd idea of those who claim that the Chinese believe their country to be situated in the centre of the world.' Lovell herself confirms that China in the past was always named after its ruling dynasty, and was not called the `Middle Kingdom'.

To support her view, Lovell resorts to false etymology, claiming that `hu' means `barbarians', when it means no more than `foreign'. It is used today in `hujiao' for `pepper', `hutao' for `walnut' and `hu luobo' for `carrot', words in which `hu' simply indicates that these foods did not originate in China. But `hu' originally meant the jowls of `horses', and became a name for Central Asia, from which the Chinese obtained their horses. Lovell further claims that the Di people were despised as `dogs', and the Man people denigrated as `worms'. Di is derived from the characters for `dog' and `fire'. The dog, an important animal needed for guarding campfires, was the totem of some tribal groups. The character for Man shows not `worms' but `snakes', below a symbol for `many'. The Man people lived in a region infested with snakes, and modern excavations have shown that the snake was a totem in the ancient Dian kingdom of Yunnan. The etymology of these names appears in the first Han dynasty dictionary, while Lovell's false etymology was refuted decades ago. Lovell also distorts Chinese attitudes by her constant use of `barbarians', following Burton Watson, whose translations often add `barbarian' to Chinese names of non-Han ethnic groups. She thus captions a photo as being of `Xiongnu barbarians', adding `barbarian' to a name which occurs in Chinese texts simply as `Xiongnu'.

This use of the term `barbarian' can be traced to Robert Morrison who, after making only ten converts in thirty years of missionary effort, hit upon `xenophobia' to explain his lack of success, transferring the European opposition between Romans and `barbarians' into a Chinese context. He compiled a dictionary in which he explained `Yi', the name of the non-Han tribes to the East, as meaning `alien' or `foreign'. The character is made up of the characters for `big' and `bow'. The inhabitants of this region were hunters. As the English had entered China from the East, they were classified among the `Yi people'. No exception was taken to this, until Morrison, during the opium war, adopted a new translation of `barbarian'. Parliamentary opposition members pointed out that Morrison's translations made the Chinese sound more sinister that they really were, while Sir George Staunton's son stated that translations designed to create a bad impression could not be too severely reprobated. The translation of `Yi' as `barbarian' continues to this day to distort past Chinese views of the West.

Many of her `insights' are not new. That early Chinese history was based on myth, that the wall near Beijing was built in the Ming dynasty, that China was governed by non-Han dynasties for thousands of years, have all been known for centuries. Chinese all know that the early emperors of Chinese history are mythical, just as every English person knows that the King Arthur is not historical. Every history of China discusses the thousands of years during which China was governed by non-Han rulers. But this does not make the achievements of Chinese civilisation less `great', although Lovell is at pains to prove otherwise.

In citing the Houses of Parliament as a monument to `democracy', Lovell appears as naïve as those whose `propagandistic polemics' she derides. Not all Westerners admire the `democracy' of the US and UK `democratic' governments, in which Bush and his lapdog are able to impose their will, regardless of the express wish of millions. Her hope that China will move to democracy along the George W. Bush model leaves one gob-smacked!

Some may love her `wit' and `humour'. But I do not find the telling of history, punctuated by snide comments, especially in her introduction and conclusion, amusing. I agree with her criticism of the self-serving Chinese propaganda trotted out by journalistic hacks, but it is a pity that her contempt does not extend to the Western journalistic hacks who retail the implausible nonsense in works written in English about China over the last 200 years. Altogether, an unpleasant book by a condescending, patronising Western author about the gullible `heathen Chinee.' Her accusing the Chinese of feeling superior to the rest of the world is a case of the `pot calling the kettle black.'
Before buying this tract: CAVEAT EMPTOR.

A Grand History
The Great Wall - China Against the World 1000 BC - 2000 AD


Reviewed by: Nathan Hoturoa Gray: Author of First Pass Under Heaven: One Man's 4000km Trek along the Great Wall of China:


"You're not a real man, unless you've got to the Great Wall," so said China's infamous Communist leader Mao Zedong - inspiring his troops to make it to the Great Wall after 6000 miles of arduous trekking during the Long March. What then, does it take, to be a real woman? At 350 pages, 3000 years of blood thirsty history, and 7,000 km of bricks, clay and mortar, Cambridge scholar Julia Lovell's deeply researched and enormously enlightening account of the Great Wall's history puts her efforts in a similarly enduring calibre.

Taking the reader into the intriguing depths of the Chinese cerebral, her 2 and a half year thesis intellectually engages the reader from beginning to end, gradually unravelling wall upon wall that has hidden China from the western psyche. This is no small feat. From the hilarious opening where she describes how the first western diplomats to the Chinese Emperor kowtowed full body frontal on the freezing cobblestones of the Forbidden City to win his favour, and, in return for their civic obedience, received gnawed lambs bones and accommodation `fitter for hogs than human creatures:' - Lovell's apt description of the superior `Middle Kingdom' mindset resonates as a solid authority on the political perspectives provided throughout this wieldy hardcover brick.

Thus, while many emperors decided upon a xenophobic, even provocative choice of foreign policy protecting themselves from the `animalistic Mongolian hordes' by building Walls rigourously since 230 BC - it was only until the end of the Han Dynasty almost 500 years later that Lovell describes that the idea to actually `include outsiders' became a minor trend. Yet she goes on to say that even this cultural renaissance had its draw backs opening up civilised Chinese values of filial honour and patriarchal piety to the Barbarian traits of fratricide - aspiring young emperors beginning to kill off their own family in the relentless pursuit of power and political control.

Lovell's take on the pros and cons of Wall building is balanced, albeit philosophical as she leaves it up to the reader to take their particular stance. `Walls are useful when there are enough institutionalised super-ideologies (Capitalism, Communism, and German Expansionism) to require erection of clear cut barriers. However when is it no longer necessary to build walls to divide those who can behave from those who can't?"

The account traces the story of allegiance and power - its use and abuse - stupidity and genius - as well as the limitations that isolationism and seclusion have brought upon China right through to the present day. Examining Chinese control over the Internet with what she calls the `firewall' and the continuing role of the Great Wall as a more unifying tool to galvanise globalisation, the book brilliantly covers all the stages of Chinese history including President Nixon's famous visit to the Wall at Badaling. It is a great read for anyone with the time and the fancy to unravel the mysteries behind China's complex Communist and Capitalistic mindset - and leaves the reader musing about where this global giant is heading...

By Nathan Hoturoa Gray - Author of First Pass Under Heaven: One Man's 4000km Trek along the Great Wall of China: Penguin www.greatwalldvd.com