Now, a compelling new book of photographs documents nearly a half-century of presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens and top lawmakers ascending the structure built along what was China's northern border for the very purpose of keeping their ancient counterparts out.

In the communist tradition of utilitarian naming, it is titled "Gathering of Heads From Five Continents." But its purpose is more basic: This is China's guest book — a chronicle of its evolving relationship with an outside world it is embracing more than ever before.

"The Great Wall is a window into China. And all the leaders of the world want to look through this window," says Xie Jiuzhong, assistant editor of the five-year project. He is also assistant general manager of Badaling Tourist Co., which operates this part of the Great Wall.

Thanks to its proximity to Beijing, its dramatic mountain vistas and its well-developed tourist facilities, Badaling is the most popular segment of the Great Wall. Six million people, a third of them foreigners, visit each year.

The book chronicles 360 of those — China's most celebrated tourists.

India's Jawaharlal Nehru was the first; he came in October 1954, five years after the communists took power and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. But no photos were available until 1957 when Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, the 76-year-old chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, donned a pith helmet and trudged skyward. If he made any pithy comments, history didn't record them.

In the years since, many have come and many have rhapsodized — leaders from the Caribbean to the Caucasus, from

Mauritius to Mozambique, from St. Lucia's Kenny Anthony to Israel's Yitzhak Rabin.

"Our visit to the Great Wall makes us feel the sacred power of thousands of years," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in 1999, ascending in a Great Wall baseball cap and a very loud striped shirt.

Fidel Castro, stopping by in 1995 in his trademark fatigues to visit his fellow communists, said the wall represented "industry and indomitable spirit of the Chinese people."

And from Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, decked out in a purple suit and matching hat as she tromped forth in October 1986: "I have been to many places, of which the Great Wall is the most beautiful."

China's relationship with the outside world was tentative for years after the communists took over, and the book reflects that.

Most photographs date from after 1976, when Mao's death and the Cultural Revolution's end pushed China toward a waiting world.

Many pictures drip with history, Chinese and otherwise. The shot of President Richard Nixon, wearing a fur-lined jacket on Feb. 24, 1972, came during the visit that helped end more than two decades of estrangement between Washington and Beijing.

"Only a great nation can build such a magnificent Great Wall," Nixon said.

Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's dictator, stopped by in 1973 in his trademark fur hat and cane. He has since died, and his African nation is Congo, rechristened after he was kicked out in 1997.

The snapshot of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1989 seems unexceptional until you consider that just south, in Beijing, student demonstrators who viewed him as a model of openness were massing on Tiananmen Square. Barely two weeks later, many would die in China's most notorious event of a generation — the June 4 crackdown.

Mao is never shown. The Great Helmsman apparently never climbed Badaling. But legendary Premier Zhou Enlai appears in two photos, and the late leader Deng Xiaoping and current President Jiang Zemin have both been photographed at Badaling.

The book is rife with spelling errors, most due to phonetic transliterations into Chinese and back. Gorbachev is "Gorbachyov," and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern is "Bertie Ehen."