In the ongoing courageous struggle of a relatively small group of Chinese to prevent the completion of the Three Gorges Dam in China, Dai Qing is the outspoken leader whose eloquent voice is always heard despite threats and intimidation by the Chinese authorities to silence it. Dai Qing, an investigative journalist and author with a wide audience in China and abroad, compiled this book of essays and field reports assessing the impact of the Three Gorges megadam now under construction at Sandouping in China's Hubei province at great risk to her own freedom. This book is an effort to prevent history from repeating itself ten-fold (a reference to the great floods in 1975 during which over 60 dams collapsed and at least 100,000 people lost their lives) if the 39 billion cubic metres of water in the Three Gorges reservoir ever escapes by natural or man-made catastrophes. These comprehensive essays reveal the deep rooted problems presented by the Three Gorges project that the government is attempting to disguise or suppress. The main concerns are population resettlement and human rights, the irreversible environmental and economic impact, the loss of cultural antiquities and historical sites, military considerations, and hidden dam disasters from the past. Opponents of the dam are attempting to kill the project or at least reduce the size of the megadam now planned to be the biggest, most expensive and, incidentally, the most hazardous of all hydro-electric projects on this planet. 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. Authored by Qing, Dai; Thibodeau, John G.; Williams, Michael R; Dai, Qing; Yi, Ming; Topping, Audrey Ronning Used Book in Good Condition