City Walls by James D Tracy

City Walls by James D Tracy

The essays presented in this volume, first published in 2000, describe a phenomenon so widespread in human time and space that its importance is easily overlooked. City walls shaped the history of warfare; the mobilisation of manpower and resources needed to build them favoured some kinds of polities over others; and their massive strength, appropriately ornamented, created a visual language of authority. Previous collective volumes on the subject have dealt mainly with Europe, but the historians and art historians who collaborate here follow a comparative agenda. The millennial practice of wall building that branched out from the ancient Near East into India, Europe, and North Africa shows continuities and points of contact of which the makers of urban fortifications were scarcely aware; separate traditions in China, sub-Saharan Africa, and North America illustrate universal themes of defensive strategy and the symbolism of power, each time embedded in a distinctive local context.

Review of the hardback: '… well worth a close look …' Sixteenth Century Journal
Review of the hardback: ' … well presented and illustrated … City Walls succeeds in presenting a wide and informative range of analyses with much new material to many readers, not just medievalists'Medieval Archaeology XLVI
Review of the hardback: 'All contributions assembled in this volume are valuable contributions to scholarship … excellent and very thorough pieces of original research.' Brill

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780521124157
ISBN 10	0521124158
Title	City Walls
Author	James D Tracy
Series	Studies In Comparative Early Modern History
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2009-12-03
Number of pages	720
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.