In Simon Winchester, the Yangtze has found a chronicler equal to its prodigiousenergies ... The River at the Centre of the World is an immensely authoritative account, the definitive book on the Yangtze.

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, tn this compelling book, award-winning writer Simon Winchester and his plucky companion Lily travel upstream all the way from hustling cosmopolitan Shanghai to Tihet, deeper and deeeer 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 he the site of the world's largest hydro-electric 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.

Map of China

In Gratitude

Author's Note

Prelude

The Plan

The Mouth, Open Wide

The City Without a Past

The First Reach

City of Victims

Rising Waters

Crushed, Torn and Curled

Swimming

A New Great Wall

The Shipmasters' Guide

The Foothills

The Garden Country of Joseph Rock

The River Wild

Harder Than the Road to Heaven

Headwaters

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index