Legendarily, 2200 years old and 4300 miles long, the Great Wall of China seems to make an overwhelmingly confident physical statement about China's age-old sense of itself as an advanced civilization anxious to draw a line between itself and the 'barbarians' at its borders. But, behind the Wall's intimidating exterior - and the myths that have built up around it - lies a complex history of China's view of the outside world, and itself. In this book, Julia Lovell explores the conquests and cataclysms of the Chinese empire over the past 3000 years with wonderful style.