The book is the product of a private Canadian expedition to China in 1992. Its members sought to gauge the potential cultural destruction of the daunting and controversial Three Gorges Dam project, which was actively supported by the Canadian government and by corporate sectors.What cultural losses will accompany the expected economic and political gains? What will China, Canada, and the world community lose? How might we, as Canadians, view the purpose and impact of the project, which is now well under way? Using a government-sponsored assessment of the cultural artifacts destined to be submerged by rising waters behind the dam project, our guides - a publisher (Caroline Walker), a heritage consultant (Robert Shipley), a travel writer (Ruth Lor Malloy), and a scholar (Fu Kailin) - lead us on a sometimes comical and frequently troubling tour of the Yangzi gorges region.