The First Emperor unified China - but at what cost? As Qin Shihuang’s terracotta warriors come to London, here's a study of a 2nd-century Mao

SINCE HIS DEMISE IN 210BC, the First Emperor of China has had something of a reputation. A ruthless unifier who forged an empire that would be the basis for dynastic rule until early in the last century, Qin Shihuang was often criticised for having done the right things for the wrong reasons.

The short-lived Qin empire (221207BC) imposed unified standards in transportation, coinage, weights and measures, and language. For this, and for the extraordinary reach of his military might, the emperor bequested a legacy for which generations of autocrats would be grateful.

These are the things that he continues to be celebrated for in China today. But unity and standardisation exacted a heavy price on the cultural and linguistic diversity of his territory. As the last great dynastic empire of China – that of the Manchu-Qing (1644-1911) – fell into chaos in the early 20th century, ending more than two millennia of dynastic rule, thinkers would question the toll that centuries of unanimity had taken.

Frances Wood has something of a history herself, based on her attempt to debunk Marco Polo’s account of his years in China. Her Did Marco Polo Go to China?was an imaginative romp. While not on the same audacious scale as Gavin Menzies’ risible fiction 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, it elicited a similarly scarifying response from scholars.

The First Emperor of China is a slight volume, but is written nonetheless with Wood’s usual chatty flair. It reads as if it was rushed into publication to coincide with the British Museum’s ambitious exhibition, The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army. While not as rigorous as that show’s sumptuous catalogue, it still offers a timely digest of English-language scholarship on the subject.

Sadly, its lack of original research or consideration of recent Chinese work on a vast and fascinating subject leaves one disappointed. There has been a great deal published in recent years on Qin Shihuang’s Great Wall, and considering it would have enriched this book.

It is unfortunate that Wood ends her account with Mao Zedong. She claims that, with the demise of the man some called “a modern-day Qin Shihuang”, interest in the First Emperor shifted to and has remained focused on the extraordinary archaeological finds at his tomb outside Xi’an in Sha’anxi province. If the author had taken the story past her days as a student in 1970s China, she would have found a rich field of cultural grist for her mill.

Despite the international hype surrounding the 2005 “Mao as Monster” biography by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, the Chairman has, like the First Emperor, enjoyed a fascinating and disturbing posthumous career in China. Mao is lauded for unifying the nation and imposing strict but incorruptible government in the sort of language still used to extol the achievement of the Qin ruler.

The First Emperor enjoys an equally unsettling purchase on the mass imagination, and works such as the successful 2002 film Hero, by the director Zhang Yimou, have given an ancient tyrant a new lease of life. In the film, the steely emperor, ensconced in his dark keep, stares down would-be assassins and overcomes opponents in the name of the unity and harmony of “all under heaven” ( tianxia).

Zhang was born and raised not far from Qin Shihuang and his entombed warriors, and looks so like one of those terracotta guardians that he played one in a film about a Qin warrior come to life in the modern world. It is, perhaps, appropriate then that Zhang is leading the design team for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which will trumpet for a world audience China’s hard-won and ruthlessly policed unity and harmony. Yet China remains what one of its critics called a “party-empire” ( dang tianxia). That is worth contemplating as you marvel at the exhibition that inspired this book. The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army opens at the British Museum, London WC1, on September 13; 020-7323 8181; www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

THE FIRST EMPEROR OF CHINA by Frances Wood

Profile, £15.99; 224pp

Buy the book here for £14.39 (free p&p)

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