Barbarians at the Wall

Barbarians at the Wall tells the story of the Xiongnu, the steppe confederation that became the first great nomadic empire on China’s northern frontier. Under Modu Chanyu and his successors, mobile armies challenged the Qin and Han states, forcing Chinese rulers to combine walls, military colonies, diplomacy, trade, tribute and dynastic marriage in their northern strategy. The resulting rivalry helped define both early imperial China and the political traditions of Inner Asia.

John Man uses archaeology, Chinese chronicles and travel through Mongolia and northern China to recover a people known mainly through the records of their enemies. He explains how pastoral wealth, horses, flexible alliances and control of exchange routes supported Xiongnu power, and how centuries of conflict and accommodation helped shape the frontier, the Silk Roads and enduring Chinese ideas about the lands beyond the wall.