The Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army places the thousands of clay soldiers discovered near Xi’an within the life and state-building programme of Qin Shi Huang. John Man follows the wars that unified China in 221 BCE, the First Emperor’s administrative reforms and the vast mobilisation of labour behind roads, palaces, frontier works and a mausoleum complex intended to reproduce imperial power in the afterlife.

The book describes the 1974 discovery, the excavation and conservation of the figures, and the evidence revealed by their weapons, armour, ranks and individualised faces. It also considers the still-unopened central tomb and the human cost of Qin rule, showing that the army is both an archaeological wonder and a monument to the coercive state that created the political framework of imperial China.