Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick

by David Frye

Chosen as Main Selection, History Book Club          For thousands of years, people have built walls and assaulted them, admired walls and reviled them. Great walls have appeared on every continent, the handiwork of Persians, Romans, Chinese, Inca, Ukrainians, and dozens of other peoples. They have accompanied the rise of cities, nations, and empires. And yet they rarely appear in our history books.     In Walls , David Frye makes a powerful case for rewriting history. Drawing on evidence from around the world, as well as his own experiences on archaeological digs, Frye takes us on a provocative and occasionally humorous journey across windswept deserts and grassy, Northumbrian hills. As Frye guides us through a maze of exotic locales, investigating the coldest of cold cases, he gradually exposes a broader story with implications for the present as well as the past. The history of walls becomes more than a tale of bricks and stone; it becomes the story of who we are and how we came to be.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Architecture, World History, Ancient History, Historical

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2018

About the author

David Frye is a professional historian, whose views have been sought in interviews by the Science Channel, CNBC, National Geographic, the History Channel, BBC Radio, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Wired, and many other media outlets. A specialist in late ancient history, Frye received his PhD from Duke University and has participated in several archaeological excavations internationally. His articles have appeared in a variety of academic journals, popular websites, magazines, and blogs, including McSweeney's, Time, BBC World History, Medium, and MHQ.

Reviews

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subject of walls is all the rage nowadays. With the balkanization and increased nationalism of the world…there is no more apt physical representation of it than an actual wall. But the idea isn’t new. Walls have been around since the early days of civilization, in fact an argument made in this book is that walls are very much responsible for civilization as we know it. Frye’s perspective on the matter is fairy binary and best represented in the Athens/Sparta duality…those who built walls, enjoys a relatively safe environment where sciences and arts would emerge and thrive, those who didn’t build walls relying instead on their sheer muscles for safety were uncivilized barbarians. So it’s the basic brain and brawn dichotomy. Some may dismiss it as an oversimplification. But Frye really puts forth a compelling argument and empirical evidence to support it. The walled in civilized society got soft and weak over time, making it easily conquerable. But the wallless brutes and the subsequent conquerors weren’t really leading enviable lives either, their lives essentially lacking any pleasure outside of rape, pillaging and murder. So who would you have been back in the day…a civilized arts appreciating science knowledgeable Athenian enjoying all the modern comforts of the time or a dirty brutal savage Spartan, toughened from childhood by the life of personal abnegation into something like a dirty malnourished possibly naked fighting machine? Soft as it might make you, life behind the walls sounds infinitely more enjoyable, doesn’t it. Of course, the walls didn’t always work as intended and even when they did work they required enormous effort to build and maintain, resulting in crazy high death tolls, but most of the time despite all the possible negatives it was still the best bet under the circumstances, much like democracy. And so it went on for centuries, empires came and went with their walls. And this book gives a terrific overview of all that straight down to the present day, wherein the rapidly increased migration and refugee crisis of the recent years resulted in modern wall building around the world, particularly Europe and Middle East. And now, of course, there’s a very real or at least much talked about (which seems to add up to the same thing these days) possibility of a wall between US and Mexico. Frye presents some very interesting statistics testifying to the effectiveness of walls protecting the country from the designated undesirables…in Europe it seems to just resituate the matter to the next country over, sort like passing the bucket, but on a grander scheme of things. It certainly puts things in a perspective and offers readers much food for thought in mulling over the situation. But aside from that, this book is such a terrific work of historical nonfiction. I love the concept of taking a subject and revolving the world around it and Frye’s done a really awesome job. The man is erudite, clever, knowledgeable on the subject and also surprisingly (since such books often tend to go for the neutral tone) opinionated and darkly humorous, it makes his narrative style all the more compelling and made this book all the more pleasure to read. It took a while to get through and in retrospect it might be best to dip into this one instead of plowing through most of it in one day to the sheer amount of information with which the mind is bombarded. But Frye is never pedantic and always entertaining, so it reads very well and easy as far as nonfiction goes. I finished it and felt accomplished and instantly smarter, like an instant brain boost. Which is just awesome. I know Tim Marshall also has a book about Walls coming out and sadly Netgalley didn’t have a Kindle friendly version of it, but now I’m thinking what more do I need to know about the walls. Then again in a while, it might be a great way to revisit the subject from another terrific intelligent author, but for now I consider myself adequately educated on the subject thanks to David Frye and this great book. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book on pre-order ever since Tom Holland (the author, not Spiderman) tweeted so much about it last spring. It was well worth the wait. Frye has an elegant style, and I think the book will best be enjoyed by readers who enjoy good narrative nonfiction as much as history. Sometimes I found myself pausing to admire the prose.

Much of the history was new to me, including even much of the Roman history, which I would not have expected. China is obviously very important in Walls, and Frye tentatively suggests some links between Chinese and Roman walls which I found interesting. The gist of the book, however, is about how walls change the people who build them, and it's not the usual "all walls are divisive/bad" thesis you might expect. There are some pretty profound observations in here that will be bouncing around in my thoughts for a while.

[Neill Colledge · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting approach to the civilizations which the author knows about, but unreliable otherwise, especially on China. Frye cites Owen Lattimore and Julia Lovell, but does not appear to have read their works on Chinese wall-building, which make it clear that his dichotomy between wall-builders and warriors is not a universal. Several native Chinese dynasties - e.g. the Tang, Qing, and early Ming - knew how to use walls in controlling and conquering "outer barbarians".

Frye grossly over-simplifies what he calls "warrior" cultures, which were in fact as diverse and as hierarchical as most wall-building cultures. He neglects to mention the fact that the Chinese also built walls as part of their efforts to control the non-nomadic societies to the south and west of China. His greatest mistake is to claim that the purpose of walls was to keep the "warriors" out. The numerous Chinese dynastic histories make it clear that walls had multiple purposes, e.g. to tax incoming goods, to prohibit the export of certain types of dangerous or valuable goods, to arrest runaway slaves, and especially to prevent taxpayers from leaving the jurisdiction.

In short, there is already a large scholarly literature on walls and cross-frontier relations which Frye is blithely ignorant of. Anyone interested in this subject could do worse than starting with James C Scott's book, .

[cypt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dar vienas nonfictionas, kur skaičiau gan ilgai, stūmiausi sunkiai, nepakomentavau ir jau pamiršau :D Supratau apie save: nesu senovės ir įvairių civilizacijų gerbėja, niekaip neužsidegčiau tuo, koks buvo imperatorius Hadrianas arba kaip Kinija apsitvėrė savo sienomis (ne tik TA siena).

Knygoj sekama trendu pažvelgti į žmonijos istoriją kokiu nors aspektu, šiuo atveju tai - statomos sienos (nuo gilios senobės per Spartą iki pat Berlyno). Prielaida: kad apsitvėrus siena keičiasi ir žmonių charakteris, o pagal tai - jų veikla, o labai apibendrinus - kuriasi civilizacija. Priešingai, neturintieji sienų neturi ir atodairos, yra smarkūs, daug naikina. Į tokią bazinę priešpriešą galima suvesti didžiąją dalį knygos, and it gets old - skaitai ir skaitai apie vis naujas šalis, kultūras, bendruomenes, dauguma jų taip ir išnyksta neapsigynę, ir tt.

Makes sense, ane? Juk ir mes labiau norim gyvent už nepermatomų atitvarų ir turėti savo erdvės. Dėl to(, kad) esam išlepę civilizuotukai.

Apskritai - ne mano pyragėlis, nors šiaip daug trivia, daug įdomybių ir ne visiems žinotų personažų, ir tie personažai aprašyti visai gyvai.

[Yvette · Rating 1 out of 5]

if you're looking for well-researched, in-depth study of walls through ancient history to present time, this is not the book for you. i found the book to be fairly problematic for the following reasons -

(1) sweeping statements: it feels like details are sacrificed for the author's casual, irreverent "style".

(2) too much focus on the human cost ... but only for the Chinese empires: the previous chapter talks about the roman emperors who built walls and monuments, but beyond a brief statement that yup, he imposed his monuments on the populace, the "bad" parts of the roman focus on the sex scandals.

but when we go into the chapter on chinese emperors building walls ... paragraphs after paragraphs on forced labour and bloody reprisals. i mean ... come on, it isn't unimaginable that the romans had their fair share of tyrannical emperors? who killed a shit ton of people? but the author chooses to highlight only these parts when it comes to the chinese? sus, but idk feel free to disagree.

(3) factual inaccuracies: no academic background in history beyond an interest in reading history books. i'll be the first to admit that i'm very credulous when it comes to the printed word - i mean, history books take years upon years to write, right? there are pages upon pages of references - i would imagine what these authors are saying are credible.

i'm not going to fact-check this book, because i already wasted time reading this, but the one glaring example that showed me this book might not be as well-researched/accurate as other history books i've read - it states that india is in southeast asia. not fucking kidding. thought it might have been a typo - i mean it happens - but there is ANOTHER reference to india in southeast asia, alongside mentions of malaysia and thailand. wtf bro. this isn't even fucking research - all it takes is a google search.

what a fucking waste of my time. why are people giving this five stars??? also, Tom Holland and Jack Weatherford blurbed this book. was thinking of checking out their books, because of the good reviews, but now that i know they gave kudos to this book? i think i shan't waste my time on them - there are so many other books to read.

yeah, you can say i'm disappointed.

[David Buccola · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of information here but it's so biased as to be nearly worthless. The civilizing wall builders are contrasted with the barbarian hordes outside the wall. I was not impressed.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful look at something few of us have thought about-walls. Frye makes it fascinating. There are two types of walls in the book-border walls and city walls. Two types of people-those who lived inside walls and those who lived outside walls. The outsiders were nomadic, militant.

But walls aren’t enough-defenders are also needed. The Spartans were a rare breed-they lived In a city but they scoffed at walls and thought those who built them “effeminate.” But it meant their lives were devoted to warfare:

“history has demonstrated that the sense of security created by walls freed more and more males from the requirement of serving as warriors. Walls allowed them to engage fully in civilian pursuits—making things, building things, thinking, creating—whether or not they ever got around to actualizing themselves. By releasing men to the agricultural labor force, walls also freed women from bearing the sole responsibility for food production.”

The trade off was that the freedoms walls offered often left the builders unable to defend themselves: “The builders suffered a chronic failure of confidence that had them forever hiring soldiers from the ranks of their unwalled enemies.”

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is Frye’s discussion of contemporary wall building which it seems is endemic and little examined.

[Christina Dudley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed and learned from this fascinating and global and surprisingly amusing history of the physical walls we humans have built over the millenia, right up to the present time. First there were nomads and barbarians to keep out, lest they rape and pillage repeatedly, as they were wont to do. (The Mongols get a long treatment, deservedly. ) Then there were ideological walls between political systems. And now we build them worldwide to keep out folks we don't want. They may not rape and pillage anymore, but they do often drain the social services or increase threats of terrorism in some countries. I had no idea of all the walls that have gone up along borders all around the world! Clinton, the Bushes, Obama, and Trump were actually late to the wall-building party, with the American border wall, though they've ALL built and maintained it.

The book ends with a nice twist of the knife: how does fear continue to motivate us? Even those who oppose a border wall with Mexico or tighter immigration usually don't have a problem with gated communities or fortress mentalities on a more micro level.

Thank you to the publisher for the chance to review this wonderful book.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick, David Frye takes an interestingly oblique look at history through the impact of, well, walls, dividing up the world into two population segments: those who live behind them (for protection) and those who live outside of them (the cause of needing protection). At times he perhaps takes a little license in terms of overstating or simplifying, but it is all mostly fascinating, informative, and engaging.

Wall construction goes back to nearly the earliest of post-nomadic days, connected to the rise of agriculture and then of cities as populations were able to support themselves in one place for the first time. Walls rose step by step with civilization and in fact Frye makes the case that they helped create and form said civilization. First and most obviously by protecting the city inhabitants from the “barbarians outside the gates.” But less obviously he points to how walls allowed for greater security, which allowed for less need to have every person (usually men) able to function as a warrior, which allowed them to therefore specialize in skills beyond fighting so they could become smiths, poets, bakers, etc. Fortified cities became fortified regions became fortified empires and grand civilizations. And then even more nuanced is the way the walls “softened” those who hid behind them, forcing the inhabitants to hire “real” fighters from outside their walls (often from amidst those damn barbarians), leading to a cycle of empires rising and falling: as they rise they need security so they build walls, then they lose fighting skills so have to outsource soldiers, then those soldiers turn on them, the empire falls, rinse and repeat.

Frye takes us through a host of such cities/empires, including China (one can’t very well have a book about walls and not include the Great Wall, now can one?), Greece, Ancient near east, Eurasia, Rome, Byzantium, Great Britain, Russia, Mesoamerica. Frye moves not just in space but time as well, bringing us walls from four thousand years ago to the Maginot Line (Frye uses a loose definition of “wall” in places) in World War II to the Berlin Wall to contemporary times. While “build that wall” has clearly entered our vocabulary lately, making a book about walls and their impact quite timely, readers may be surprised at just how much wall-building has been done around the world the last ten or twenty years. It’s truly shocking and Frye does an excellent job covering this modern day return to wall building efficiently and effectively.

It’s a return because with the advent of heavy-duty cannon, walls lost their ability to protect, a transition made vividly clear in Frye’s chapter on the Turks’ siege and eventual conquering of Constantinople.

The impact of walls construction and failures on world history, on which regions rose and fell in power, on the psychology of an entire people as well as the psychology of smaller groups is nicely conveyed throughout in often insightful and always engaging fashion (Frye is a smooth stylist and paces the book smartly). My only issue with the book is that his insights are so often so sharp, and so often so intriguing, that I wish he had broadened his definition or his focus even more with regard to modern day walls. We move through the massive construction around the world so fast that I would have liked to slow down a little to more deeply consider the causes and potential impact. As well, I would have liked to have seen him look at smaller-scale walls, the ones we see more and more of in modern-day life around “high interest targets” such as airports, chemical plants, the White House, etc. Or prison walls, in a time period when controversy wages over the inequality of the current justice system and how we “wall off” our poor and our minorities--the “barbarians at the gates of our homes (to be fair, he does deal briefly with gated communities). And even metaphorical walls—the bubbles we can put up thanks to modern technology and social media. Granted, that would have made for a much longer book, but Frye proved himself to be a good enough writer that I would have happily followed him for another one or two hundred pages on the topic.

That said, asking for more is hardly a major criticism, so it should come as no surprise that I highly recommend walls for a different but important take on history and society.

[TG Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

從圖書館撈了這本標題看來相當吸睛的書回來讀。這本《城牆：從萬里長城到柏林圍牆，一部血與磚打造的人類文明史》是由美國歷史學者大衛．弗萊（David Frye）所著，有點像是「物質文明史」的切入角度，只不過他研究的人類文明標的物是「城牆／Wall」。

本書的前四分之三，是自史前時代一路講到近代早期各地的文明的「築牆」行為。更簡單地說，這就是「人類文明史」的一個面相︰定居社群為了想追求生活的繁榮發展，於是便以築牆的方式把專事劫掠的社群給阻隔在外。但時日久了，牆內的文明人逐漸失去了阻隔所需的資源和人力，最後牆外的蠻族入侵，毀滅牆內文明。但入侵的蠻族定居下來之後，便開始追求自己的繁榮，也開始建築自己的城牆，把其他的「野蠻人」阻絕在牆外……這種不斷的輪迴，在世界各地的歷史發展，幾乎已經算是常態了。作者在介紹各個文明圈的城牆歷史中，順道論述了「原始和平主義」、「高貴的野蠻人」是不存在的。所謂的「戰爭」在人類歷史的開端，正是文明發展之前的常態︰只有文明發展程度愈高，才會生出「和平」的概念。

至於本書最後的四分之一，則是在熱兵器發展成熟之後，城牆的保護神話遭到打破。標誌這項時代轉變的歷史事件，是 1453 年君士坦丁堡的陷落、土耳其征服拜占庭帝國。從此之後，城牆用以隔離「文明」與「野蠻」的象徵再也不存在。但雖然槍砲（再加上後來的工業革命）已經文明一方宰制了戰場，擺脫過去定居文明遭受草原騎馬民族掠劫的輪迴，但人們築牆的行為卻不因此而停止，反而更加精進地建造新世代的邊界圍牆與碉堡，無論是馬奇諾防線或柏林圍牆，甚至是今天歐美用來阻絕難民或大規模移民的阻離牆。

作者在這部分的兩個論點，我覺得挺值得注意︰第一是歐洲靠著槍砲與資本主義興起之後，便逐漸擴大中國「萬里長城」的作用，認為歐洲最終勝過中國，罪證之一便是中國長城所代表的固步自封心態所致；「中國」與「城牆」幾乎已經成了同義代名詞。但作者攤開歐洲各地的文明史，「城牆」在歷史上從來就不曾缺席過，所有人都在蓋牆隔絕外界的民族入侵。第二則是「柏林圍牆」興建時的當時脈絡，並非後人所想像得如此驚天動地，反倒是英美主政者第一時間反應是「蓋牆總比戰爭好」——這也是屢見不鮮的「歷史詮釋」的吊詭，後人的想像效應可以超過當代人們的體驗。

本書的書寫方式相當容易閱讀，在短短的篇幅裡將世界文明史作一統籌性的瀏覽。不過我覺得臺灣商務的中譯本品質似乎比不上我年青時的水準了；雖然紙質排版更加符合現代讀者習慣的亮麗活潑風格，除了容易發現的錯字數量不少之外，譯者的文字功力不太符合現代的中文習慣，特別是愛直接將英文子句用夾注號給硬生生地隔開。比如下面這句︰

橫貫群山的明長城——有時是磚、石結構——通常坐落在巨大的光岡岩脈上。（P185）

我覺得是很糟糕的中文。更進一步地講，這是譯者從未要將原文消化成母語語境，只想照搬英文的偷懶翻譯。

[Micebyliz]

I can't believe this book not only held my interest but made me laugh out loud!!!! Amidst all the blood and gore and crazy emperors I am laughing? what is in my water? But it's written in a style so enjoyable that you forget it's boring, dry history (not really) and all of it seems like recent events (some of it might as well be) I love explanations of language and how it changes over time. I love the comparisons of warriors vs. wallers and how their perspectives affected the outcome of their futures.
It's fascinating and i highly recommend it.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed reading Walls at first, David Frye seemed to become quite biased in his assessment in other peoples, the Mongols, people of Islam etc. and he strayed from the topic of walls far too much, in very unnecessary ways.

[Ian Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

WALLS – by DAVID FRYE from Allen and Unwin
Review by Ian Smith
“A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick” is the subtitle, it could just as easily have been “The Philosophy of Walls”, for it embraces the reason why man builds them, their effect on the populous and why, ultimately, they all come down.
It is the folly of humankind that, despite pleas (my voice included here), they never learn from history. Thus walls come and go yet, in today’s political climate, over 70 are current. For every person who condones them there is another who sees their waste of resources.
However, there is one undeniable thing. Civilization, as we like to call it, irrevocably advanced behind walls which, in turn, created a problem. Life turned to science and the arts and militarism was ignored to varying degrees which made empires like Rome and the myriad of Chinese ones vulnerable. So they fell and the whole cycle began again, which, in the case of China, explains why there is really no such thing as a singular “Great Wall”, just a hundred attempts in different places with varying degrees of longevity and millions of lives lost in the process.
Of course, walls don’t actually solve the problem, which is why manpower has to be utilized to a large degree to protect them, hence, in many cases, the use of mercenaries who eventually became part of the problem as well.
Despite all that history has taught us, we are now in the great second era of wall building. Did you know that Saudi Arabia has one of the most impregnable, with over 1700 kms on the Yemen side? Ten foot high steel pipes, filled with concrete and laced with barbed wire and extensive tunnels beneath make this a significant obstacle, as is its sister one on the border with Iraq, though it’s only 1,000 kms long. Israel’s walls are on the news regularly but Egypt has one at Gaza that extends 60ft below the ground. An over 400 km wall protecting Jordan from Syria was secretly funded by, you guessed it, the U.S.A. Mind you, it was an American firm that got the contract!
India has an amazing 3,200km 12 ft high barrier strung across some of the world’s highest mountains, covering the boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Kenya, Morocco and Tunisia have all gotten into the act, the latter also part funded by the U.S.A.
Turkey, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia; the list goes on.
So many of the ancient rulers who put them in place would be regarded as certifiably insane today as, indeed, are many who have put them in place in modern times. The advantage of democracy is not that it guarantees the will of the people (and what is that?) but that it curbs the madness of despots, a genre irrevocably linked to their construction. Any thoughts of 2019?
That David Frye is a knowledgeable character there can be no doubt and his take on this subject is expounded in easily understandable text. If you want understand “civilization” as it is today, this book will enlighten you in many ways.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Walls while browsing nonfiction in my local public library, and picked it up because the topic seemed both interesting relevant, especially during the Trump administration where several scuffles over funding for his proposed wall have already happened. David Frye's Walls is a book about how civilizations (traditionally understood to mean groups of people who put their efforts toward various types of specialized work, particularly agriculture) have tried - and always, inevitably, failed - to defend themselves against barbarians (understood to mean nomadic groups whose cultures all focused on war and constant preparation for war, and who constantly harassed, pillaged, and destroyed the communities built by those who lived behind walls) by using work to create barriers for protection. As can be surmised by my single sentence overview of the history of walls, those who built them, and those the walls were meant to defend against, walls have not been particularly good at this task. Chapter after chapter focusing on different time periods, different continents/regions, and different situations, all saw walls that the civilian population had depended on eventually fall. I learned a lot while reading this book, and the most important lessons are probably these:

For military usage, we cannot depend purely on physical barriers to defend a largely civilian populace. Modern warfare alone would prevent this from being an effective tactic, even ignoring the fact that this has been tried repeatedly throughout history and has, repeatedly, put ill-prepared citizen soldiers in hopeless battles where combatant and noncombatant alike have paid terrible prices. That being said, primitivism - veneration of the supposed 'noble savage' and 'warrior culture' - is a misplaced ideal built upon a false understanding of history. We would not want to live as a spartan, goth, or mongol nomad, and those cultures have no place for modern values of things like equality, education, or arts (to name a few of things) because - as cultures built around physical insecurity and anxiety - those cultures have no room for anything outside of war and constant preparation for war. As this is not a society that many hope to live in, we should instead choose to find other paths.

For nonmilitary uses (such as using border fences to stop immigration), physical barriers do not solve the problem; they merely shift it. As hardened barriers went up around the middle east, refugees fled to parts of europe. As those parts of europe put up fences and walls, refugees went around the barriers to unwalled borders or new, more easily accessed countries. As a new round of barriers have gone up, still more distant countries are expecting to see the desperate travel farther to reach their borders, going around the inaccessible points in bids to escape situations where circumstances make life a possibility only in theory. This should tell us that barriers will not do anything to help the world solve its problems; only be dealing with root of the issues - war, persecution, and other inherently dangerous and unstable circumstances - can we solve the world's 'migrant crisis.'

Overall, Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick is an excellent book. I am happy to have read it, have purchased my own copy, and have recommended it to others. Its inherent lessons - left for the reader to surmise from history across time and location - carry messages that everyone needs to hear and understand.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting and insightful book. The idea of building walls, as David Frye explains is not a new one; indeed, walls have existed since there were humans around to build one. As the cover jacket says, “ ‘Walls’ is an alternatively evocative, amusing, chilling, and deeply insightful as it gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches.” The book takes the long view. We read of ancient civilizations and why they built walls. Inside these walled countries, or cities, or towns, villages and even smaller spaces much went on. Patterns of culture were able to become established and flourish. Meanwhile, on the outside of the walls were raiders, nomadic cultures, aggressive countries that wanted the land, wealth or even to enslave the wallers. Conflict, horrendous wars and literally countless millions of people throughout history have died either defending what was inside their walls or attempting to breach the walls for gain.

This is a book that unfolds the ever-mutating story of Humankind’s history. For me, as I am not a student of history, I learned much about the arc of history. Recent walls, such as the Maginot Line, the Berlin Wall and the Epilogue “Love Your Neighbour, but Don’t Pull Down Your Hedge” revealed the more recent walls that have appeared in modern history. I imagine Professor Frye had been researching and writing this book for years, and certainly before 2016. I further wonder whether the most recent spotlight on walls did not slightly hasten this book to publication. Nevertheless, it is a book that needs to be read, and its premise needs to be reflected upon and understood.

The book does come with maps of where many of the walls throughout history have been located. The one mentionable complaint I have is that I wish there were some actual pictures of the remains of ancient walls, mounds, and archeological findings to enhance further his historical arguments. All in all, however, this book will stir discussion and debate and I urge you to read it.

[Berna Labourdette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro no exento de polémicas por la tesis que elabora y por cómo describe la situación del Imperio chino en relacion con la construcción de muros en su territorio (producto del trabajo esclavo en su mayoría), pero que resulta muy interesante al analizar la relación entre pueblos nómades ("bárbaros") y pueblos que construyen muros (sedentarios) y que se ha repetido de manera constante a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad (China, el Imperio Romano, el Imperio bizantino). Resulta aterrador el parecido con situaciones que se viven hoy (de hecho, hay un apartado sobre muros modernos como el de Berlín, Estados Unidos, Israel). Muy interesante, para leerlo a la luz de lo que sucede hoy. 

[Fer Soria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely is a book worth reading, it does its job, but the reader has also to do his/hers in order to judge and resist some of the assumptions and over simplifications the author makes, regarding the virtues of “civilization”

[Kuba ✌ · Rating 3 out of 5]

dużo informacji. ogółem całkiem ciekawe, ale w niektórych momentach nudnawe.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

saggio estremamente interessante che ribalta l'idea dei muri come qualcosa di necessariamente negativo.
Ripercorrendo la storia dell'umanità e dei muri nell'antichità, Frye ci dimostra come la loro costruzione abbia permesso lo sviluppo delle civiltà che vi si chiudevano all'interno.
Muri come barriere contro la paura che permettevano di abbandonare la guerra e svolgere attività più creative, stanziali, sicure.
Ed è questo il vero motore che scatena il nostro chiuderci dietro ai muri, concreti o immaginari: il bisogno di sicurezza che porta allo sviluppo di altre qualità.

Il punto è, a mio avviso, che la tesi di Frye ha senso nell'antichità, oggi si perde nella semplice paura del diverso, nella chiusura a priori di qualcosa di nuovo, che conduce all'arretratezza culturale e non allo sviluppo di civiltà

[pepperowa · Rating 5 out of 5]

C U D E Ń K O

„Mury” powinien przeczytać każdy. Ah jakże aktualna jest ta książka! Ile przemyśleń za sobą niesie!

Jako studentka historii sztuki potraktowałam ją jako uzupełnienie mojej wiedzy o szerszy kontekst historyczno - społeczny (nie zawiodłam się, a nasyciłam). Myślę jednak, że dzięki licznym anegdotkom, dygresjom i wyjaśnieniom pozycja ta będzie odpowiednia również dla osób „spoza tego środowiska”. Styl autora bardzo przystępny, ale nie infantylny. Raz jeszcze : C U D E Ń K O

[Karoline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! First millennium a bit tough to get through, but the revelations and connections pick up pace as a pattern emerges. Really have good for thought - great read.

[K]

Sienos.
Per paskutinius 20 metų sienų atsirado daug daugiau, galingesnių ir ilgesnių, nei per visus praėjusius 4000 metų. Norėjosi kiek daugiau apie tas dabartines sienas sužinoti, kelių pastraipų epiloge neužteko.
Chronografiškai pasakojama trumpa civilizacijos istorija sienų požiūriu. Sienos - skirtos apsisaugoti nuo barbarų, nejausti baimės ir užsiimti kokia nors kita veikla nei karyba, pvz, suklestėję menai, teatras, filosofija, etc. Barbarų visas gyvenimas - karas. Norėjosi or apie barbarus daugiau sužinoti, buvo tik vienas skyrius.
Labai įdomu buvo apie Romos imperiją skaityti.

[T-Rex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a smart book. David Frye makes some fascinating arguments about what it means to be civilized. He argues that walls were once part of the civilizing process and that the effects of early walls are still felt, looking at city walls and border walls from Mesopotamia to Berlin. The longest sections are reserved for Rome and China and he sprinkles it with amusing anecdotes about the emperors. An epilogue takes us to 2017 and provides a neat wrap-up.

One other thing, Frye has done an immense amount of research for such a slender work and I think just as important, he works from a position of neutrality rather than partisanship. This lends a credibility that so many one-sided books lack. I wish more authors would follow his example.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating read! Walls by David Frye examines defensive enclosures of the ancient world, those same walls helped civilizations survive or control their citizens no matter whether they were in Greece or lower Mississippi, China or the Berlin Wall. The author poses great theories, arguments and examinations of the reasons and uses of the walls while always returning to the same point, their importance to the people who were contained inside. Well worth the read.
Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating and compelling. A superb treatise on the evolving role of walls in defining civilization.

[Ross Richey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who should read this book?

If you like history, particularly sweeping thematic examinations of history which cover thousands of years all at once, you should definitely read this book.

You should also read this book if you want the entire backstory of the current debate over walls and border security. It may not change your mind, but you will end up with the deepest context possible for the issue.

Representative passage:

As Rome went, so went the provinces. For nearly three hundred years, Roman cities had given little thought to protecting their citizens, relying, just as Aristides said, on faraway troops and eventually border walls to hold the frontier against the warlike peoples massed outside. Some cities, mostly the older ones, had outgrown their ancient walls. Others had never had any walls at all.

In the whole of world history there had never been an experiment as grand as that of an empire composed mostly of unwalled cities. By leaving so many towns undefended, the Romans had adopted a comprehensive approach to local security—hundreds of miles of border walls and other barriers designed to create a massive impenetrable shield over all Western civilization. In the aftermath of the third-century invasions, that all changed: the emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305) implemented a program to fortify the suddenly insecure cities of the western provinces. It was the last great construction boom of a city-building empire, and it was an act that repudiated every Roman belief in what a city should be.

With due deliberation, the wall builders dismantled those splendid, open cities that their fathers had created in earlier more confident days. Buildings in the paths of the new walls were razed. Some were torn down simply to provide stone. In the rush to fortify the cities, the relentless chisels of the laborers broke apart tombs, temples, columns, baths, theaters, and amphitheaters. They tore friezes, relief sculptures, and capitals from their settings, using the bigger blocks for masonry and crushing the rest for rubble. Many an inscription, once intended to ensure immortal glory, was wrenched from its proper place to rest ingloriously among the bricks, masonry, and concrete of a rampart.

Thoughts

Everywhere I look I see examples of people who have essentially no historical knowledge, and what little they do “know” is worse than the ignorance, because it’s a complete misinterpretation of actual history. The chief value of Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick is that it takes one specific subject where deep historical misinterpretation and ignorance exists and shows conclusively how it was misinterpreted and what the facts actually are. As you might guess from the title that subject is the building of walls.

One of the most common ways for history to be misinterpreted is to give far too much weight to recent history, and far too little to more ancient history. I’m sure that on some level this sort of ignorance has always existed, but I suspect that it’s much worse now than it’s ever been, particularly on the subject of walls. As you might imagine from a history book “Walls” starts with the very oldest wall (built around 2000 BC in Syria; no one knows much about it;) and moves forward to the present day. I’m going to take something of the opposite approach and start out by covering the modern views and misconceptions of walls, before going back to a (brief) discussion of historical walls.

It probably goes without saying that if you bring up the idea of a wall today, people’s minds immediately jump to Trump’s “big beautiful wall”, and given that association, people either hate the idea or love it. And it’s unfortunate that this is as far as most people get when considering the idea of a wall. But for those that do go farther they don’t go much farther. Mostly they journey to 1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I think it’s safe to say that the Berlin Wall has a horrible reputation. And for most of the people who do make it this far back in history, that’s enough. The Berlin wall was bad and therefore all walls are bad. The point that there’s a world of difference between a country building a wall to keep people in and building a wall to keep people out gets brought up again and again, with, as far as I can tell, no discernible impact. Here’s what Frye had to say:

For the time being, however, the Wall...has firmly attached itself to our historical memory. In modern debates on walls, the Berlin Wall figures in almost every utterance. It is the universal example, perpetually at hand, perpetually tossed into discussions of barriers with which it had absolutely nothing in common.

...

The Wall shed its former role as a symbol of communist oppression and acquired an entirely new image in a foggy-minded popular imagination that remembered the Wall but couldn’t quite recall who’d built it or why.

The Berlin Wall had always had impeccable timing—making its grand appearance at the height of the Cold War and bowing out in spectacular fashion to bring the Cold War to its conclusion. It would now embark on its second career with similar timeliness, returning to the stage as a symbol of all border walls, just as they were about to make a reappearance around the world.

As I’ve said the misinterpretation of the Berlin Wall is unfortunate, but if it had never existed, I’m not sure the current (low) opinion of walls would be very much different, because only a few decades before the Berlin Wall there was the Maginot Line. For those who might be unfamiliar with the Line. It was a series of fortified bunkers and gun emplacements (the French called them ouvrages) guarding the border between France and Germany. The Line was finished in 1939. Which would have been excellent timing if the Germans had not merely gone around it. Unfortunately, the French considered the Ardennes Forest to be “impassable” and they didn’t fortify their border with the Low Countries either. The Germans proved that the forest was eminently “passable” and beyond that they’ve never much cared about the sovereignty of the Low Countries.

The fall of France came swiftly, and it was with equal rapidity that the Maginot Line joined the Great Wall in that growing list of symbols that compose our mental shorthand when thinking about walls. For the next fifty years, at least, writers could speak of a “Maginot Line psychology” when dismissing some misplaced faith in the power of sanctuary. Historians applied the term retroactively. The great Persianist Richard Frye spoke of Sasanid Persia’s “Maginot Line mentality” when describing its system of walls. Arthur Waldron compared the Great Wall of China to the Maginot Line.

Perhaps, if the French had been wise enough to extend the Line (it’s possible they would have done just that had they been given more time) it’s story and place in history would be entirely different. As it turns out, when the Germans did decide destroy the Maginot Line, that despite being able to attack it from both sides, and using aerial bombardment and artillery, they were unable to destroy or capture a single ouvrage. The defenders eventually surrendered only when their food started getting low and when ordered to by the French commander in chief. A World War II where the Germans never made it across the borders of France would have been a very different war from the one we ended up with.

But, as you may have gathered from the quote, no discussion of walls would be complete without considering the zenith of historical wall-building, the Great Wall of China. It’s very fashionable these days to dismiss the Great Wall as a staggeringly expensive and deadly failure. And from there to go on to dismiss all walls, ever, but this may be the greatest misinterpretation of all.

To be clear there were a lot of negatives to the Great Wall of China and historical walls in general. They were deadly for the workers. They were horribly expensive. Unless they stretched the entire length of the border you could go around them. Also they were only as good as the men who guarded them. If a general could be bribed, (as one was in an oft-repeated story about the Great Wall) then it didn’t matter how secure they were. And yet in every region of the world (New and Old) and in every historical era walls kept getting built, despite all of these costs.

I don’t have the space to get into all of the numerous historical examples. To discuss the difference between the wall-less Spartans and the wall-building Athenians. To review all of the many Chinese walls which predate the Great Wall, stretching all the way back to 800 BC. For that you have to read the book. I will only offer up the falling observation. You have a choice between only two conclusions. One, that despite all of their weaknesses, and despite the enormous cost in blood and treasure, that walls provided a significant net benefit to the kingdoms and nations which constructed them. Or, two, that nearly all civilizations, throughout all of history were seized with the same irrational wall-building madness. Pursuing damaging and misguided policies again and again despite the evidence.

This takes us to the current misinterpretations plaguing the debate over walls. Apparently, there are a significant number of people who believe in conclusion two. In fact in the link I gave earlier about how the Great Wall was a staggeringly expensive and deadly failure, the author includes a quote from Arthur Waldron (the person who also compared the Great Wall to the Maginot Line) who suggested, “There was a cheaper solution, as it turns out, which was to simply do some trade with the Mongols.” I’m not sure the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the Sack of Baghdad would agree. In any event, whether they’ve actually adopted conclusion two, or if their historical thinking extends back no further than the Berlin Wall, in the West all the current talk is about building bridges not walls. (This is only in the West by the way, everywhere else a Second Age of Walls has begun. Lead by Saudi Arabia which has already built a wall longer than the one proposed by Trump.)

Frye had this to say on the subject of bridges:

“Good fences make good neighbors” experienced early retirement. In its place came the untested phrase “Build bridges not walls.” If nothing else, the new slogan seemed designed to give military historian fits. Throughout history, bridge building had been recognized as an act of aggression. Since at least the time of Xerxes bridging the Hellespont, Caesar the Rhine, or Trajan the Danube, bridge building had preceded invasions, enabling troop movements across natural barriers, and as late as the twentieth century, military uses had figured prominently in the thinking behind the bridges of Germany’s autobahn and the American interstate highway system. None of this was enough to slow the rise of a hot catchphrase. The slogan showed up on T-shirts, wristbands, and banners. It became a popular hashtag on Twitter. Protestors chanted it. Politicians invoked it. Even Pope Francis paraphrased the sentiment.

The arguments are fierce, and I think all sides could use the benefit of a historical perspective. “Walls” definitely provides it.

Criticisms

As I just mentioned Frye buttresses his argument that walls are still important by talking about all the walls which have recently been built. He points out, that in terms of length, there are more border walls than they have ever been. But what he doesn’t really talk about is how these walls have a significantly different purpose than past walls. They are not designed to keep out invading armies, they are designed to keep out immigrants. This is a big enough difference to have deserved more commentary than he gave it. While I basically agree with the points he made, the possibility certainly exists that modernity has changed things in a way that makes walls less useful. Of course the opposite is also possible, that technology has made them more useful, and while he does spend some time on that side of things, as a whole, the discussion of how modern walls might be different from ancient walls is lacking.

Beyond that my only other criticism is that he has this whole argument that one of the reasons people dislike walls is become of primitivism. That they have an idealized vision of a freer, more primitive state where there are no walls. As he points out this vision is entirely incorrect, but I’m not sure that it plays a very big role in current anti-wall sentiment, and although he didn’t spend that much time on it, the time he did spend could have better been spent elsewhere.

If you were going to take only one thing from the book:

How important have walls been in the history of civilization? Few civilized peoples have ever lived outside them.

[Stephen Gallup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early on in my reading of this book I recalled a lecture given many years ago by a landscape historian named John Dixon Hunt. My takeaway from his presentation was that designers of traditional formal gardens sought, via geometric patterns, symmetry, square hedges, and statuary, to make the outdoors resemble the indoor world, while the real walls inside houses were papered with images of vines and flowers, in imitation of wild undergrowth.

Granted, that kind of playfulness departs from the purpose of David Frye's history of walls as a key element of civilization. However, I noted that ambiguity because in Frye's book too there's a suggestion of people wanting to have it both ways. We're attracted by order and stability, but we're reluctant to pay the price for it. (To repurpose Robert Frost, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall.") (Or to repurpose Benjamin Franklin, "Those who surrender freedom for security deserve neither.")

A walled city of ancient times offered its citizens protection from "outsiders who saw them as little more than a ready source of loot, land, animals, or women," and yet shepherds who took their chances roaming far and wide across the landscape (the "cowboys" of that era) were admired for their freedom.

More to the point is the observation that the emergence of walls led to two diverging courses for human history. Consider the contrast between Sparta, which relied for its protection only on "walls of men," i.e., a standing army consisting of virtually every man, and nearby walled Athens, home of the great classical playwrights and philosophers that were so instrumental in founding Western civilization. The Spartans saw "contempt for pleasures" as an asset in and of itself, believing that intellectual or artistic pursuits led to weakness. Their unflinching toughness may impress us still today, but only if we ignore the fact that Sparta's army existed for as long as it did because all the labor of growing food, making things, and maintaining civic life devolved upon women and a great many slaves.

The trend has been toward walls, because anything capable of minimizing existential threats is good for mankind's continued prosperity, even if it does "weaken" us somewhat. And yet walls exact a terrible cost.

China had constructed a multitude of protective walls long before getting around to erecting the famous one that still stands today. The enterprise involved "a breathtaking amount of labor," which also must have been heartbreaking in view of the rapidity with which those walls were destroyed by sandstorms and rains. Frye indicates that walls around cities were generally accepted as being necessary (the character for wall also meaning city: 城). However, construction of more massive border walls, meant to protect the entire country, created misery. Surviving records tell us they were "built with cries of pain and sadness." Nevertheless, the emperor decreed that the work must be done, and that, further, any worker caught napping on the job would be buried inside the wall.

When an intrepid explorer came back to China with the exciting news that another walled society existed far to the west, that prompted creation of the famous Silk Road to make trading possible. (The Silk Road too needed protection against roaming tribes of marauders.)

In the West, walls encircling the entire Roman Empire kept those marauders at such a distance that "most Romans had come to doubt that wars ever really happened. Reports of battle [on distant frontiers] were dismissed as fairy tales. ... The Empire had become a sort of civilian paradise [with] gymnasiums, fountains, temples, monumental arches, artists, and schools."

However, "a wall is only as good as its defenders." The soldiers entrusted with protecting the Empire also grew soft, and were unprepared when assaults inevitably came. In Britain, "barbarians poured over the Wall and slaughtered a Roman army." Subsequently, "a numbing catalog of raids, border wars, and invasions" shocked the people out of their complacency.

The same sequence occurred in Rome, in Constantinople, and yet again in China and in Central Asia, where Genghis Khan obliterated great cities, most of which are forgotten ruins even today.

The lesson Frye seems to draw is that, while the walls did temporarily secure peace, they were impossible to maintain. They required not only vast numbers of workers for their construction and maintenance but also vast numbers of border guards, many of whom were foreign mercenaries of dubious loyalty. (Genghis Khan's forces got past China's border walls when the defenders foolishly opened the gates to him. They "could not imagine anything worse than their tyrannical emperors," a decision that "ranks as one of the greatest miscalculations in history.") Secondly, when a society is too long oblivious to the possibility of unpleasantness from abroad, it loses the resilience to keep going despite setbacks.

But finally, after examining the history of societies on every continent, Frye sees a "hint of universality," even when the pattern has been turned on its head, as in North America, when "great masses of wallers [Europeans], generally inept at warfare despite their access to gunpowder weapons, invaded an unwalled continent inhabited by warriors."

The writing here is very lively, interspersed with occasional startling gems that would not be out of place in a TED Talk, e.g.,:

"It was the usual story in which a teenager, nearing adulthood and fancying himself a heroic crusader for justice, falls for the seductions of some impractically radical group, subsequently outgrows the infatuation, and has the remaining members of the group put to a horrible death."

Also, in addition to the very broad historical view, there are worthwhile factual nuggets. Until reading this I may never have made the connection that the word czar, for the Russian rulers, was a Slavic corruption of Caesar. I certainly never knew that the Cossacks (a word meaning "free men") were escapees from the labor of building Russia's walls. They eventually earned a reputation for barbarism equaling that of the nomadic hordes to the south.

I must say the book's many facts are integrated into the narrative much more smoothly than in another history I read a few weeks ago (a biography of Franz Liszt). I said in commenting on that one that while the preservation of factual details is key to history, they can really bog down a presentation of it, and distract the reader, if they're allowed to dominate. Frye's book demonstrates how it should be done.

With the evolving instruments of warfare, walls of the past finally became obsolete. Even so, the book concludes with stories of modern-day attempts to repurpose the concept, notably the Maginot Line, installed on the border between France and Germany before WWII (which didn't work because the Germans simply went around it), and of course the infamous Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall (where the intent was not to keep invaders out but rather to prevent unhappy citizens from leaving).

In the new millennium, border walls have continued going up, especially in the Middle East but also in India and Africa, prompted by mass migration and the rise of Islamic terrorism. By 2009 (well before Trump's inauguration), the US had securely fenced 700 miles of its southern border. The result of all that, however, has only been to redirect the tide of migration. For example, when migrants from Yemen or Syria could not got to their first-choice destinations, they went to Europe (which belatedly began throwing up its own barriers). The situation now evolving in the US has the rich living in their own walled compounds while many in the middle class have bought homes in fenced-off, gated communities.

And then of course everybody contends with threats like the continuing invasions of malware and computer viruses, against which we install firewalls. Frye acknowledges the existence of walls of that sort, but says those are properly the subject of another book. He has done enough with this one!

[Carlos Leos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historically, people can be split into two camps. Those that build walls, and those that don't. Put differently, there are the civilized, and there are the barbarians. A major theme in Frye's book is that civilized people, throughout history, from Ancient Mesopotamia to Ancient China to Ancient Europe built walls to protect themselves from the nomadic, rough-living barbarians that lived outside the walls.

Having the protection of walls meant that people could free themselves to do other kinds of work besides defense, such as art, pottery, metallurgy, and carpentry. Over time, the civilized wall builders lost their instincts for fighting, and preferred work over war. By contrast, those that lived outside the walls did not work. At least the men did not. Work was a woman's occupation. To be a man meant to be a fighter, a warrior, a raider of those that built walls.

And so it was, for multiple cultures, civilizations, and time periods. Until, of course it wasn't. The nature of warfare changed, and the dichotomy between civilized workers and barbarian warriors became outdated. But the building of walls persisted, as we know is quite true of our present day word.

David Frye's "Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick" is a fun, compelling history of the world through the lens of walls and wall builders, civilization and barbarism. His thesis is convincing, and its always fun to sew a thread of commonality between different cultures across time, from the Persian and Roman Empires to socialist Eastern Germany and Suburban America.

[Liliana Marchesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quando ho visto questo titolo fra le novità Piemme, ho sentito da subito un richiamo. Una connessione con il sottile filo della Distopia e… non mi sono sbagliata.
Partendo dalla Mesopotamia e arrivando fin quasi ai giorni nostri, David Frye ci conduce in un viaggio attraverso la storia delle civiltà che hanno abitato il nostro pianeta. Popoli diversi tra loro che hanno tentato invano di convivere. Anzi, no. Alcuni non ci hanno nemmeno provato.
Ma a parte questo, i veri protagonisti di questo libro sono i muri, che silenziosi hanno assistito all’evoluzione della nostra specie che, secolo dopo secolo non ha fatto altro che ripetere i medesimi errori.
Quindi, proprio oggi che festeggiamo il trentesimo anniversario della caduta del muro di Berlino, non posso che suggerirvi questa lettura. Una lettura abbastanza impegnativa, ma resa piacevole dalla capacità dell’autore di raccontare in maniera quasi avvincente dati archeologici e fatti storici.
Un saggio che mi ha regalato momenti di profonda riflessione sulla natura umana, sulle paure che da sempre albergano i cuori di ognuno di noi e sulle possibilità che sono andate perdute a causa di scelte sbagliate o forse, a causa di qualche parete di troppo.

[Filip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts promising enough but quickly loses steam and becomes kinda repetitive. I guess there are only so many ways in which you can say that civilizations built walls to keep enemies out. And of course that made them weak, not unlike those cool, manly barbarians that didn't need walls and were badass. Also, I believe at least some information about the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire was factually wrong (for example believing everything Procopius wrote) though I can't say about the information on other civilizations.

That said it did offer some interesting and refreshing points of view on the topic of borders and walls and did provide information about walls - past and present - that I had no idea about. I expected more from this book, but it wasn't bad and definitely not a waste of time.