During China's recent tourism boom, the Great Wall has become one of the most recognizable images of China, Asia, and the world. This book provides a systematic explanation and scholarly interpretation of the Great Wall, offering common sense theories about its methods of construction, performance, and fate based upon years of fieldwork.

The Great Wall (Images of Asia)

History

Lindesay, William

Asia

Oxford University Press

The "Book of Lists" ranked Chairman Mao as the most hated man in the world in 1980. Sixteen years after his death, China could have buried the memory of the Cultural Revolution by putting Mao six feet under. On the contrary he remains six feet above in a monolithic mausoleum. William Lindesay, whose wife is Chinese, benefits from being both insider and outsider, and has been able to discuss the Long March with its veterans, and provides an interview with the mortician who embalmed Chairman Mao. He travels over a period of a year to Mao's birthplace, to the roots of the CCP and the first base area of the communist guerrillas. The 1993 publication of the book coincides with the centenary of his birth. William Lindesay is the author of "Alone on the Great Wall".

Marching With Mao: A Biographical Journey

Travel

Hodder&Stoughton

A journey along the Great Wall in the past and present, this landmark volume offers an extraordinary portrait of perhaps the world’s most famous structure. Carrying his camera and a file of vintage photographs—the earliest dating from 1871—author-photographer William Lindesay traveled across Northern China for three years, searching for settings where the Great Wall could be examined in the past and present, side by side. The result, The Great Wall Revisited, presents seventy-two of the most elucidating then- and-now comparisons. This glossy dossier opens out as an extraordinary journey from the Jade Gate in northwest China’s Gobi Desert to Old Dragon’s Head on the Yellow Sea. 
 Far more than a romantic look at the Great Wall of yesteryear, this stunning, artfully crafted volume also contains concise histories of the sites that Lindesay’s images revisit. Colorful literary impressions composed by earlier visitors, juxtaposed with contemporary eyewitness accounts of change traced along the Wall, afford a sense of history unfolding and time inexorably creeping along the contours of this enduring monument to human ingenuity.

The Great Wall Revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon's Head

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Harvard University Press

From the survey beforehand to the foundations, the core, and eventually the ruins, this book explores the majesty of the Wall through the objects it has inspired such as the appearance of the Wall in Ortelius’ atlas of the world to the unexpected origins of ‘wolf smoke’, proliferation of the blunderbuss in the 15th century Great Wall theatre of war, and Kafka’s classic short story "At the Building of the Great Wall".

The Great Wall in 50 Objects

Religion & Spirituality

Viking China

Provides advice for travellers to China

China

Qi, Wu

CHAN, Charis

吴琦

Passport Books

Beijing (Odyssey Passport China Guides Series)

Beijing (Odyssey Passport China Guides Series)

It is arguably the greatest feat of civil engineering in history, and indisputably earth’s largest single cultural relic: begun during the Qin Dynasty (around 208 BC) and completed nearly 1,800 years later during the Ming Dynasty, the Great Wall of China spans more than 4,000 miles. At the dawn of the Beijing Olympics, the eyes of all the world are upon it. Two men who navigated every inch of the Wall have collaborated on a lavishly-illustrated tribute to this amazing structure. Michael Yamashita, an award-winning National Geographic photographer, spent a year shooting the Wall, its environs, and the people who live in its shadow, for the magazine. One hundred and sixty of his magnificent photos grace this volume, which features text by William Lindesay, who not only conducts tours of the Wall and spearheads the movement to preserve it, but has actually run its entire length. Broken into three sections, The Great Wall provides an overview that debunks myths and dishes up rare facts and figures, a comprehensive history that proceeds dynasty by dynasty through its construction, and an account of Lindesay’s personal experiences of the Wall.

The Great Wall: From Beginning to End

YAMASHITA, Michael

Photography & Video

Sterling

At a time when China was turning inward once again, a young Englishman, William Lindesay, ran alone for more than 1,500 miles to become the first foreign conqueror of this ancient symbol of xenophobia-the Great Wall of China.Lindesay kept a trip diary that portrays an affinity for the people of China and their history. From the soldiers of the imperial frontier, the merchants of the Silk road and the heroes of the Long March to the simple peasant farmers who wrote messages of encouragement in his diary, Lindesay came to know the many people of China who extended the hand of friendship.

Alone on the Great Wall

Travel Writing

Fulcrum+ Publishing

The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China

In 1974, near Xi'an in central China, villagers chanced upon what has become one of the world's most astonishing archaeological finds--an 8,000-man army in battle-ready formation, each warrior a life-size figure in pottery made over 2,200 years ago. The i

Baofu, Guo

Odyssey Books & Maps

From a beginning in a remote desert, the Great Wall stretches across North China to the Yellow Sea. It is the only man-made object visible fromthe moon. This book seeks to tell the story of its construction, its purpose and effectiveness.'

The Great Wall

Ancient Civilizations

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lindesay, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lindesay, William

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lindesay, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Great Wall (Images of Asia)

Marching With Mao: A Biographical Journey

The Great Wall Revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon's Head

The Great Wall in 50 Objects

China

Beijing (Odyssey Passport China Guides Series)

The Great Wall: From Beginning to End

Alone on the Great Wall

The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China

The Great Wall