Walls are among humanity’s “first fruits,” nearly as elementary as “the sharpened stone and the roaring fire,” writes architectural historian Ian Volner. But in The Great Great Wall, he finds civilizations that had no need of walled cities and borders, including the Mayans and Aztecs. Volner zigzags across continents and centuries, accumulating interesting facts as he rummages in the ruins of Jericho, tours the Great Wall of China and revisits Berlin where effacing the city’s divided past is a profitable industry. Among the anecdotes he unearths is first lady Pat Nixon, speaking in 1971 at the Mexican-American border: “May there never be a wall between these two great nations.” Hovering over the pages like the fat balloon that chased Trump on his British visits are the policies of the present administration, sometimes befuddled but persistent and hinged on fear. If a coherent argument emerges, it’s that walls often don’t work as intended. Who knows? Maybe in another century’s Trump’s barriers will survive as a tourist trap?
