The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth

Abstract

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.