"Far more than a travel narrative, this is a major book on an important topic and is recommended for all libraries."
--Library Journal (February 1, 1999)

Few places on earth match the splendor of the Yangzi River's Three Gorges. Replete with precipitous temples and sites of ancient battles, this 150-mile stretch of shoals and chasms has inspired millennia of poets, princes, and paupers. In Through the Dragon's Mouth--Journeys into the Yangzi Gorges, Ben Thomson Cowles takes a look at China's past, present, and future, and the fate of the Yangzi River's Gorges.

As the son of missionary parents, Ben Cowles was spellbound by tales of danger and daring from those who had ventured into the famed "Dragon's Mouth" of China's great waterway. In 1946, amid the ruins of World War II and just prior to the Communist takeover, Ben Cowles set out to experience the gorges first-hand. For nineteen days he immersed himself in the life of the river, sharing cramped quarters with 65 crewmen aboard a 95-foot junk. Along the way they encountered bandits, sages, revolutionaries, birth and death, and, ultimately, a sense of meaningfulness that has accompanied the author ever since, an awareness that we are all "brothers on the long river." Ben Cowles is a Christian theologian, but this book is full of reverence for Oriental philosophy, with running commentary from the I Ching.

Lyrical, thought-provoking, and suspenseful, this is armchair adventure travel writing at its best. Illustrated throughout with photos and line illustrations, the book also contains a 16-page section of color photographs.

About the author
Ben Thomson Cowles was born in Kentucky, raised in South China, and educated at Haverford College and Union Theological Seminary, where he studied under Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. He earned a masters degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate from the University of Southern California. Ordained a Presbyterian minister, he has served as pastor in churches in Long Beach, San Marino, Santa Monica, and Whittier, California. He has written articles and conducted seminars on Chinese history, Christian ethics, psychology, and pastoral counseling. He is the author of Free to Be Responsible.