Walls - A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick (David Frye, 2018)

(248 pages)

Book club selection (via me; session held 13 January 2019).

I felt like the author could have done more with the topic - but it was sufficiently interesting that I made our book club members read it.  And the discussion was quite good, perhaps because the current government "shutdown" - in significant part over DJT's proposed border wall (or so they claim) - helped focus attention.

Author's main thesis is that one way to look at history is to divide folks into just two camps - those who built walls, and those who lived outside them.  Simplistic?  Yes.  But helpful, and interesting.  Without walls, not much would have ever been built - the marauders were out there and all too ready to destroy.  So civilization depended on walls.  Yet a funny thing happened to the wall builders - they often became weak, timid - to the point where they often had to hire outside-the-wall types to serve as a defense force.  Author walks through examples, including Rome.

He talks about "fear" driving the wall-builder decisions, but that seems over-wrought - sure there was an element of fear, but putting up walls and outsourcing defense seems rational; comparative advantage!

Lots of discussion in the book about the steppe hordes, China, Persia.  Tough folks on the steppes, they never would have built a wall.  Sparta similarly wired.  Reviews the Constantinople walls.  Rome with no internal walls for centuries - the legions were the walls - that changed as conditions deteriorated.  Hadrian's wall.

Walls no longer all that effective for military purposes - but remain relevant, and pretty effective, for border control purposes.  More walls going up in recent times than have been constructed in a long-long time - because they work, if imperfectly.  Often demonized, but deep down how many folks truly believe in open borders?

We lock up our homes, fence our properties - what does that tell us?

Also discusses Berlin wall, though that was a "keep them in" situation. 

Reminder:  civilization is fragile.  Destroying is easy relative to building.