The paper discusses Colin Thubron’s book Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China – one of the most popular twentiethcentury travelogues about this country. It explores the various ways in which the author constructs the image of the Chinese people, especially when these images are related to China’s recent history. More specifically, I focus on a discursive phenomenon – an imagined “return of history” – which the reader can witness throughout the book. The author constantly travels around the country, expecting to somehow see the history he has heard so much about at home. He expects something from China and is prepared to see this ‘something’ even in the face of the evidence. At the same time he feels he has every right to pass judgments on what he perceives as history, while denying the Chinese he meets the right to comment on British history.