Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick

Frye, a teacher of ancient and medieval history, offers an accessible history of walls and wall builders. Starting at the 4,000-year-old Great Wall of Shulgi, in Sumer, Frye—writing in a breezy and often humorous style (he calls Hadrian “the old drama queen”)—skips across history to ancient Greek walls, Hadrian’s Wall in England, the border walls of China, France’s Maginot Line, the Berlin Wall, and the proliferating walls in 21st-century Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Early societies, Frye writes, built walls as a security measure against the barbarism of raiding tribes from the Eurasian steppe (here described in needlessly graphic detail). He notes that the walls constructed by the Chinese Empire paradoxically fostered early globalization by imparting to travelers and merchants the safety that made the Silk Road possible, but also encouraged isolation that left an opening for Western empires to conquer the rest of the world. And he considers the psychological impact of 21st-century walls on both migrants and refugees and the wall-builders trying to turn them away. Readers will find Frye’s rumination—on the reasons walls exist and will continue to exist, what they can and cannot do, and their contribution to the growth of civilization—informative, relevant, and thought-provoking. Agent: Peter Steinberg, Foundry Literary + Media. (Aug.)