ElyaDatabase ID Number: T002

Creator: David A. Pietz, University of Arizona

The Yellow River is both the “mother of Chinese Civilization” and “China’s sorrow.” Every Chinese ruler from the mystic Yu the Great to the early 20th century premised his mandate on the state’s capacity of ordering this water, mystic Yu the Great to the early 20th century premised his mandate on the state’s capacity of ordering this water, whose dikes ruptured nevertheless. Yet forty years of high modernism and high socialism led to the most “extreme” South-to-North Water Diversion Project. Professor David Pietz told this socialist tale, and how it is destined to promise still more watery tears in the century ahead.