The River at the Centre of the World

Book excerpt: The mighty Yangtze splits China in two, between the wheat-growing North and the rice-growing South; almost 500 million people live and work along its banks. In this compelling book, award-winning writer Simon Winchester and his plucky companion Lily travel upstream all the way from bustling cosmopolitan Shanghai to Tibet, deeper and deeper into almost inaccessible territory and the hidden recesses of early Chinese history. Their 3,900-mile journey takes them past the magnificent Three Gorges, soon to be the site of the world's largest hydroelectric dam, through jungles, grasslands, high plains, polluted industrial landscapes and ice-covered mountain ranges. Winchester sketches in the background, describes a host of strange encounters and vividly reveals the harsh realities of today's China. There could be no more enthralling account of the greatest river on earth.