BEHIND THE WALL is a book as monumental as its subject: "the land of a billion uncomprehended people." Having learned Mandarin, and traveling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron set off on a 10,000 mile journey from Bejing to Tibet, from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall.

What he reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.

"Colin Thubron is an uncannily intuitive, resilient and enterprising traveler. He has wonderful funds of sympathy to bestow, yet can be appropriately cold-eyed. Altogether, he gives the impression of having the potential to become a legend within his own time." --Edward Hoagland