2,000 Years of History along the Yangtze River in China

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IF THIS RIVER ran past nothing but 3,900 miles of low, lumpy hills and muddy banks, it would still be an unsurpassed wonder. It stretches farther than any others but the Nile and the Amazon, and lies so wide in some stretches that Marco Polo lost credibility when he reported to the Europeans that a man could stand on one shore and not see the opposing bank. On or near the Yangtze's edges, more than 350 million people reside - a third of China's population and, roughly, one in every 15 human beings on the planet.

The river's tortured, silt-brown path is strewn with sampans, barges and ferries carrying coal, fruit, rocks, cows and people in very nearly unthinkable volumes. …