Product Description

Imagine a wall 30 feet high, a wall thousands of miles long, a wall that crossed deserts and climbed over impossibly jagged peaks, a wall that contained thousands of individual forts and towers, a wall that was guarded by over a million soldiers, a wall that took 200 years to build.

Now imagine the enemy that this wall was built to defend against.

The Mongols were nomadic warriors of legendary skill and savagery. Their empire encompassed most of the known world, from southern Asia to northern Europe, from the Middle East to the Sea of Japan. Now the fierce and unstoppable horsemen were bearing down on China. For the Chinese, there seemed only one solution: to turn their country into a vast fortress.

The Great Wall chronicles a people's struggle for absolute security in a violent and dangerous world. It is a story of astonishing success and ultimate failure, of ingenuity, determination, the will to survive and, in the end, futility.

Wonders of the World series

The winner of numerous awards, this series is renowned for Elizabeth Mann's ability to convey adventure and excitement while revealing technical information in engaging and easily understood language. The illustrations are lavishly realistic and accurate in detail but do not ignore the human element. Outstanding in the genre, these books are sure to bring even the most indifferent young reader into the worlds of history, geography, and architecture.

"One of the ten best non-fiction series for young readers."
- Booklist

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #691156 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.20 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 4 Up. A look at the story behind the building of the famous wall. Told in story format, the readable text is presented in a concise, straightforward manner. Beginning with the kidnapping of the Ming dynasty's sixth emperor in 1449, Mann traces the roots of the historical battles for land and power between the Chinese and the nomadic Mongols. As a result of the constant fighting, the first attempts at building a wall date back to the first emperor of China, around 200 B.C. However, the majority of the text focuses on the period after Khubilai Khan's rule through the year 1644. The text is surrounded by ample margins and accompanied by a full-color, captioned illustration on each spread. The vivid paintings, done in earthy tones, blend in with the photographs and museum reproductions that also appear throughout. A time line highlighting the various Chinese dynasties, a chart of the Mongol invasion, and a map showing the approximate location of the Wall round out the presentation. This title includes more detail than Leonard Fisher's The Great Wall of China (Macmillan, 1986); fans of Mann's The Great Pyramid and The Brooklyn Bridge (both Mikaya, 1996) will not be disappointed with it.?Shirley N. Quan, Orange County Public Library, Stanton, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4^-6. Although they are more dramatic than informative, Alan Witschonke's pictures are what will probably attract readers to this entry in the Wonders of the World series. A little information about the Great Wall and its construction is given, but it's clearly not the architecture or the awesome magnificence of the structure that is the book's real concern. In fact, more information about the structure and its building would have been welcome. Instead, Mann focuses on the convoluted history behind the structure's building, which she makes surprisingly accessible. She begins with events during the reign of the first emperor of China and follows the protracted conflict between the Chinese and the nomadic people who inhabited the grasslands north of China, which became the touchstone for the wall's construction. A good adjunct to other resources. Stephanie Zvirin

From Kirkus Reviews
A beautiful and informative entry in the Wonders of the World series in which Mann (The Brooklyn Bridge, 1996, not reviewed, etc.) meticulously outlines the building of the Great Wall as well as the thousands of years of conflict that prompted it. Detailed illustrations chronicle the Chinese people's attempts to foil violence by erecting the wall; millions of Chinese lugged stones, day in and day out, for over 200 years, to build a fortress 30 feet high over thousands of miles. A large center fold-out illustrates what an attack on the Great Wall might have looked like in the mountains north of Peking. A timeline illustrates Mongol invasions in the 13th century; a map shows the location of the Great Wall dividing China from the north where the Mongols and the Manchus roamed the steppe. A thoughtful discussion about the life of nomadic tribes on the steppe and their difference from the Chinese people illustrates how cultures distrust and fear one another: ``Order, harmony, and stability were important to the Chinese. They looked down on the nomads and their wandering, warlike ways. They called them barbarians.'' Mann makes thrilling the ironies of the Great Wall: It never fulfilled its purpose of providing safety by exclusion, and contributed to the downfall of the Ming dynasty because of its enormous cost. (maps, chronology, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.