More than two thousand years ago, with his land under constant attack
from nomads, the First Emperor of China came up with a simple solution:
build a wall to keep out enemies. It was a wall that kept growing and
growing. But its construction came at a huge cost: it is believed that
more than a million Chinese died building it, earning the wall its
nickname--the longest cemetery on earth. Through the story of the wall,
Patricia Brennan Demuth is able to tell the story of China itself, the
rise and fall of dynasties, the greatness of its culture, and its
present-day status as a Communist world power.