This book is a fascinating exploration of how walls have been used throughout history and the impact they have had on human civilization. Frye's storytelling is evocative, amusing, chilling, and deeply insightful. Readers interested in history and architecture will especially enjoy this book, as it offers a unique perspective on the relationship between walls, power, and society.

Riley is your virtual thrift companion, and here to help you find your next favourite read. You can also find in-stock similar reads linked by topic and genre here!

In Walls historian David Frye tells the epic story of history’s greatest
manmade barriers, from ancient times to the present. It is a haunting and
frequently eye-opening saga—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 existed—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 themselves—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
Asia’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 Hollywood’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?

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.