Origins of the Great Wall of China

A Frontier Concept in Theory and Practice

Bibliographic Data

ID4490448
AuthorsOwen Lattimore (corresponding author)
Year1937
Volume27
Issue4
Pages529
Publication date1937-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/209853
OpenAlexW2313551730
LanguageEN
Citations received15

THE Great Wall of China developed out of an earlier system of walled frontiers to which relatively little attention has been paid,' though notable advances have been made in recent years, especially by Chinese research workers, in textual criticism, in the geographical identification of early place names, and in clarifying the historical sequence of relations between the Chinese and various tribal peoples.2 It is now possible to use this rich critical and documentary material to carry speculation and discovery a stage further. What factors in the society of China promoted the development of the Great XVall form of frontier delimitation? Once the main line of the Great Wall had been established, implying the concept that the Frontier should be absolute and immovable, does the working of any of the factors that can be detected in agriculturally based China and in the nomadic pastoral society of the steppe help to explain the way in which, through century after century of the ebb and flow of conquest, this inherently permanent kind of frontier was obliterated, reestablished, and modified

Archaeology · China · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Frontier · Chinese history and philosophy · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Philosophy