The River Dragon Has Come!: The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and Its People
Trained as a scientist before becoming an investigative journalist, Dai was imprisoned for criticizing the Chinese government's endorsement of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam?potentially the world's biggest hydroelectric project. Now at Harvard, she has compiled 15 essays to illustrate why the project would be an unqualified disaster in terms of "population resettlement and human rights, the irreversible environmental and economic impacts, [and] the loss of cultural antiquities and historical sites." Dai asserts that the dam has no practical value, but the government leadership believes it will demonstrate Chinese dominance and superiority. The essays tend to be redundant, but they do illustrate, first, that the Chinese government is unlikely to back down from its mission and, second, that there exists a small number of well-informed Chinese dissidents. Environmental groups and international political activists would be the primary audience for this rather expensive collection of essays. Recommended for large Chinese collections.?Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Oak Park, Ill.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.