What's So Great About the Great Wall?

The Chinese never called it "great" and still don't. In large part, it was the foreigners who taught the Chinese to elevate the Wall to a national symbol and object of pride. But should it be? Throughout Chinese history, since the First Emperor ordered the construction of what we now see as the first iteration of it, the Wall has been a Janus-like symbol representing both strength and tyranny. Perhaps that is simply the nature of walls: a contraption that keeps outsiders out must in some ways also constrain those within, whether physically or spiritually and intellectually, so that nowadays we speak of the "Great Firewall" of China.Support the show