Book Review: 'Before The Deluge'

When all is said and done, Chetham writes, the project will submerge "at least thirteen cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages, 657 factories, and approximately 74,000 acres of cultivated land under about 300 feet of water...The slow-motion destruction of the Yangtze river towns, the environmental consequences of stopping up one of the world's longest rivers and questions about the dam's viability have preoccupied activists both in and out of China for years."