The Great Wall
Lovell, Julia

RRP
A$49.95

FROM THE INTRODUCTION:
This book looks behind the modern mythology of the Great Wall to uncover a 3000-year history far more fragmented and far less straightforwardly illustrious than its crowds of visitors imagine.

The story of the Wall winds through that of the Chinese state and of the frontier policy that defined it, through the lives of the millions of individuals who supported, criticised, built and attacked it.

It is time to see the Wall less as it is now - a great tourist attraction, an impressive piece of engineering - and more as it has been throughout its monumental history: a symbol that reveals China's sense of itself, and of the outside world.

Author Information

Julia Lovell was born in 1975 and teaches Chinese history and literature at Cambridge University. She has spent extended periods in China and has recently translated the prize-winning Chinese novel, A Dictionary of Maqiao. She writes on China for The Guardian, The Times, The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement. She is married to the writer Robert Macfarlane.