Books on topics related to the Great Wall

[chinoook]

Chinese Walled Cities
221BC - AD 1644
Stephen Thurnbull, Steve Noon (Illustrations)
2009 by Osprey Publishing
64 pages

This booklet of the well-known series gives some insight in Chinese walled cities. As examples Zhengzhou, Chang'an, Kaifeng, Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou, Pingyao and Zhang Bi are examined as well as some historical battles. Do not expect to much new understanding to the Great Wall but it is a good starting point to understand fortifications. Easy to read, interesting, not really going deep into the matter of warfare or lage-scale defense. I will buy more books of this series like "Imperail Chinese Armies" and "Siege tecniques of the Far East" and probably others.


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[chinoook]

I will here compile some books and sources about city walls and defense structures as well as warfare.

http://books.google.com/books?id=gSupaU3vVacC&hl=de
City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective by James D. Tracy, University of Minnesota Center for Early Modern History
Cambridge University Press, 2000

Amoung other chapters:

• Representations of Chinese walled cities in the pictorial and graphic arts
• Hierarchy of Ming city walls

http://books.google.com/books?id=C0cuekiMWD0C&hl=de
The making of strategy: rulers, states, and war by Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, Alvin H. Bernstein
Cambridge University Press, 1996

This volume focuses on the processes by which rulers and states have framed strategy from the fifth century BC to the present. With a chapter by Arthur Waldron (well known to us ...):

• Chinese strategy from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

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[chinoook]

The Construction of Hadrian's Wall
Peter Hill
Tempus Publishing 2006
160 pages

Unlike many other books this is a scientific one. It collects as much as possible information about the construction of Hadrian's Wall and covering the following points:

• Planing
• Stone work
• Lime, sand and mortar
• Scaffolding
• Hoisting
• Transport
• Building operations
• Organisational aspects

Many simple drawings illustrate the text.

I have leared much from this book about other Great Walls (most of course about the Roman Limes (which Hadrian's Wall is just a part of) but also about building techniques in general and the problems which had to be solved, regardless on wich side of the Earth a wall was built.


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[chinoook]

The Mystery Wonderland Allah Shan
by Chen Huai

150 p.
48 RMB
$10.00

This is not a Great Wall book. But the topic is the desert north of the Hexi Corridor and thus very much related to the Great Wall. Some pictures of it are contained.
This book is a miracle. The author, living in Shandan, tells about the landsacpe of his homeland.

This book can be obtained in the west by me, I have a couple of copies here and will get delivered more on a regular base. Just send me a private message and I will get it sent to you. (Kim and GWF: Your copies are on their way).


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[chinoook]

The Yellow River in the Distance
by Chen Huai

308 p.
110 RMB

This book also is not a Great Wall book. But since it contains selected areas of Qinghai and Gansu the Great Wall is never far away. Many GW places described, some of them rarely seen in other books. The book is suggestive on the magic of the landscapes, the culture and the life in rural China between the deserts in the north ("Gobi") and the Qinghai/Tibet plateau in the south. This is the most impressive of Chen Huai's recent books, I was very much surprised to find it among the other books he sent to me.
Exeptional photos, general quality of paper and print so-so to poor but it transports a spirit very rarely seen.

This book can be obtained in the West by me. It will take a long time until delivered since it has to be sent in China and then sent or brought to me.



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