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Rating: 
Summary: A facinating review of a part of China's history.
Review: A remarkable adventure through China's Yangtze River written by an author who is a part of that history.This is a must read book both well written and well illustrated.
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Summary: The best written on the Yangzi Gorges by a great China hand.
Review: Anyone who has gone to China, or who plans to go should make this book a must. Dr. Ben Cowles is an expert of the first order on China in general and the Gorges in specific. As one who has been to China 67 times since President Nixon was there, few I have met have the knowledge, love, passion and experience for such a book as Dr. Cowles. When you put it down and that is hard to do once you pick it up, you will feel, "I have been there." Dr. Joseph B. Kennedy, Chairman, U.S.China Education Foundation
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Summary: Author's intentions in writing this book
Review: I appreciate very much the reactions readers have expressed. The book aimed to include personal experiences of the 1946 journey into the China's famed Yangzi River Gorges, also to indicate exerpts of historic and literary references regarding the area and incidentally to provide a sketch of mission centers. Perhaps most important was the reactions I had to the lao bai xing (China's commoners).
Rating: 
Summary: Three Gorges
Review: I like this book more than some of the previous reviewers but I can only offer medium praise. Dr. Cowles is truly an "old China hand" of the first order. His experiences and trials in China, especially his voyages through the Yangtze Gorges before they were "made safe" by demolishing hazardous rocks in the 1950s, the constuction of the Gezhouba dam in the early 80s, and the on-going constucton of the Three Gorges Dam, can be considered an adventure of a lifetime. Having said this, as someone who has travelled through the Gorges over 170 times by ship and by foot (and read nearly everything written about the Gorges), his book is a big disappointment. Before you purchase this book, I would recommend Hersey's A Single Pebble or Winchester's River at the Center of the World if you truly wish to learn about the Gorges. The dialogue in Cowles' book is very contrived and dry. Cowles' recollection of past adventures are stikingly similar to other books written about pre-1950 voyages which leaves doubt in this reader's mind if these are Cowles' experiences at all, or if he is just borrowing from others, given that his voyage was over 50 years ago. The illustrations and some accounts are outstanding, but Cowles' attempt to mold his characters around discussions of the I Ching, each discussion conveniently broken off by some new trial that the crew faces as they negotaite the treachorous rapids of the Gorges, comes up lacking and is not very believable. Unfortunately, the dryness of the dialogue (which I don't believe) and the similarity to other books about the Gorges forces me to give this book a poor rating. Buy the other books first and make your own informed opinion. I would recommend this book third behind other books about the Gorges. With Kemp Tolley's Yangtze Patrol and Diedre Chatham's new book due in March, I would bump this book to fifth.
Rating:
Summary: Three Gorges
Review: I like this book more than some of the previous reviewers but I can only offer medium praise. Dr. Cowles is truly an "old China hand" of the first order. His experiences and trials in China, especially his voyages through the Yangtze Gorges before they were "made safe" by demolishing hazardous rocks in the 1950s, the constuction of the Gezhouba dam in the early 80s, and the on-going constucton of the Three Gorges Dam, can be considered an adventure of a lifetime. Having said this, as someone who has travelled through the Gorges over 170 times by ship and by foot (and read nearly everything written about the Gorges), his book is a big disappointment. Before you purchase this book, I would recommend Hersey's A Single Pebble or Winchester's River at the Center of the World if you truly wish to learn about the Gorges. The dialogue in Cowles' book is very contrived and dry. Cowles' recollection of past adventures are stikingly similar to other books written about pre-1950 voyages which leaves doubt in this reader's mind if these are Cowles' experiences at all, or if he is just borrowing from others, given that his voyage was over 50 years ago. The illustrations and some accounts are outstanding, but Cowles' attempt to mold his characters around discussions of the I Ching, each discussion conveniently broken off by some new trial that the crew faces as they negotaite the treachorous rapids of the Gorges, comes up lacking and is not very believable. Unfortunately, the dryness of the dialogue (which I don't believe) and the similarity to other books about the Gorges forces me to give this book a poor rating. Buy the other books first and make your own informed opinion. I would recommend this book third behind other books about the Gorges. With Kemp Tolley's Yangtze Patrol and Diedre Chatham's new book due in March, I would bump this book to fifth.
Rating:
Summary: Three Gorges
Review: I like this book more than some of the previous reviewers but I can only offer medium praise. Dr. Cowles is truly an "old China hand" of the first order. His experiences and trials in China, especially his voyages through the Yangtze Gorges before they were "made safe" by demolishing hazardous rocks in the 1950s, the constuction of the Gezhouba dam in the early 80s, and the on-going constucton of the Three Gorges Dam, can be considered an adventure of a lifetime. Having said this, as someone who has travelled through the Gorges over 170 times by ship and by foot (and read nearly everything written about the Gorges), his book is a big disappointment. Before you purchase this book, I would recommend Hersey's A Single Pebble or Winchester's River at the Center of the World if you truly wish to learn about the Gorges. The dialogue in Cowles' book is very contrived and dry. Cowles' recollection of past adventures are stikingly similar to other books written about pre-1950 voyages which leaves doubt in this reader's mind if these are Cowles' experiences at all, or if he is just borrowing from others, given that his voyage was over 50 years ago. The illustrations and some accounts are outstanding, but Cowles' attempt to mold his characters around discussions of the I Ching, each discussion conveniently broken off by some new trial that the crew faces as they negotaite the treachorous rapids of the Gorges, comes up lacking and is not very believable. Unfortunately, the dryness of the dialogue (which I don't believe) and the similarity to other books about the Gorges forces me to give this book a poor rating. Buy the other books first and make your own informed opinion. I would recommend this book third behind other books about the Gorges. With Kemp Tolley's Yangtze Patrol and Diedre Chatham's new book due in March, I would bump this book to fifth.
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Summary: three gorges
Review: I must agree that the book uses very contrived dialogue which clearly reduces the interest level. With the subject topic, this should have been a dynamic powerful book but winds up forcing the reader to continue in search of something to grab onto. it was dry, very dry, and found lacking - I picked it up because I am interested in anything relating to the Three Gorges area but I was terribly disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Missionary in China
Review: This is an honest work, constructed in a thoughtful manner. This book really gave me a feeling for a gritty two-way passage through the Dragon's Mouth in 1946. Cowles, living in China, is a wide eyed missionary in the most turbulent of times, and his perspective is very interesting. This work is highly historic, and has some beautiful pictures and illustrations which bring the work to life.
Rating:
Summary: Missionary in China
Review: This is an honest work, constructed in a thoughtful manner. This book really gave me a feeling for a gritty two-way passage through the Dragon's Mouth in 1946. Cowles, living in China, is a wide eyed missionary in the most turbulent of times, and his perspective is very interesting. This work is highly historic, and has some beautiful pictures and illustrations which bring the work to life.
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Summary: Contrived dialogue and characters muddy the waters
Review: While I do not question Dr. Cowles' love of China, I think his book is poorly written. It feels like it was quickly thrown together in an effort to profit from all the attention surrounding the controversial Three Gorges Dam. This book has too much contrived dialogue and seems to borrow too much from greater books about the Gorges, principally A Single Pebble and Cornell Plant's Glimpses of the Yangtze Gorges. Unfortunately, Dr. Cowles tries to pass off material written by others as his own. He lifts a paragraph from Cornell Plant's book, written over seventy years ago, about a junk owner's wife and reproduces it verbatim. Then to show his complete lack of interest in his own book, he repeats the same paragraph, only slightly altered, two pages later! The book does have good points, but only when Cowles writes about the missionaries does he seem to care. The rest - about the gorges, about the boatmen, about the romance of the river - should be written by someone else.
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