Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick (Gift for

Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick (Gift for History Buffs)

In Walls historian David Frye tells the epic story of historyâ€™s greatest manmade barriers, from ancient times to the present. It is a haunting and frequently eye-opening sagaâ€”one that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live.

With Frye as our raconteur-guide, we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existedâ€”to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out.

The stars of this narrative are the walls themselvesâ€”rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asiaâ€™s steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywoodâ€™s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era.

A masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling, Walls is alternately evocative, amusing, chilling, and deeply insightful as it gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them?
Country USA
Manufacturer Scribner
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2018-08-21
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Scribner
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2018-08-21
Format	Kindle eBook

Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick (Gift for History Buffs)

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