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"'Wood's book is [an] introduction to a ruler who has been hailed both as his country's founding father and vilified as a ruthless tyrant.' Sunday Times 'Timely, and as sensible as it is concise.' Independent 'A timely digest of English-language scholarship on the subject.' The Times 'Wry, concise and authoritative.' Times Literary Supplement 'Frances Wood presents a different portrait of The First Emperor of China, offering good reasons why myths of cruelty and megalomania should not be entirely believed.' Metro"
The Good Book Guide
`Essential reading and a colourful insight into a world in the making.'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book after visiting the British Museum's exhibition on the The First Emperor, hoping it would fill me in on various things that piqued my interest in the exhibition, which it did to a great degree.
The book describes life for common people in Qin China; what food they ate, what the wore, the legal code they lived under etc, as well, as of course, the various achievements of the First Emperor, including the Great Wall, the terracotta army, burning of the books etc.
This is done through a combination of archaeological evidence and contemporary sources, which are sadly limited to the Great Scribe of the succeeding Han dynasty and a few others.
The book is incredibly easy to pick up but very hard-to-put-down; I finished in less than two days! It educates and amuses through a number of delightful stories among the hard facts and is very well written.
However I can't help but feel that the author has missed a trick here. As someone with an interest primarily in military history, I noted to my disdain that the book tends to skim over his main achievement; the actual unification of China. There is no mention of the campaigns undertaken, tactics used, battles fought or states conquered by the First Emperor, we are merely told China was unified by 221BC. Indeed, the solitary map provided gives no political divisions between pre-221BC China. I do not know enough to say whether this is due to lack of sources or simply due to an alternate focus for the author but I find this quite an important omission.
To conclude, this is a very well written and informative book, but military historians should look elsewhere.
The book describes life for common people in Qin China; what food they ate, what the wore, the legal code they lived under etc, as well, as of course, the various achievements of the First Emperor, including the Great Wall, the terracotta army, burning of the books etc.
This is done through a combination of archaeological evidence and contemporary sources, which are sadly limited to the Great Scribe of the succeeding Han dynasty and a few others.
The book is incredibly easy to pick up but very hard-to-put-down; I finished in less than two days! It educates and amuses through a number of delightful stories among the hard facts and is very well written.
However I can't help but feel that the author has missed a trick here. As someone with an interest primarily in military history, I noted to my disdain that the book tends to skim over his main achievement; the actual unification of China. There is no mention of the campaigns undertaken, tactics used, battles fought or states conquered by the First Emperor, we are merely told China was unified by 221BC. Indeed, the solitary map provided gives no political divisions between pre-221BC China. I do not know enough to say whether this is due to lack of sources or simply due to an alternate focus for the author but I find this quite an important omission.
To conclude, this is a very well written and informative book, but military historians should look elsewhere.
Format:Hardcover
There are much better books...Sima Qian...Raymond Dawson and the First Emperor of China to start with.
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