Map on endpapers. Includes bibliographical references (pages 493-538) and index.

I. "All Creation, Lad" -- 1. Paleo Prelude -- 2. The View from the Pine Orchard -- 3. How Old Is the Hudson Valley? -- 4. Life Comes to the Hudson Valley -- 5. The Silence in the Stones -- 6. The Coming of the Wilden -- 7. Trails to M'skatak -- II. New Netherland -- 8. The First Europeans -- 9. Thirty-Two Days on the Road to Cathay -- 10. The Two Row Wampum -- 11. The Stamppot Thickens -- 12. An Astonishing Plentitude -- 13. Season of the Kiwit -- 14. Rensselaerswijck -- 15. Esopus and the Indian Wars -- 16. Petrus Stuyvesant's World -- 17. The Coming of the English -- III. The English Period -- 18. The New Hegemony -- 19. An Inglorious Evolution -- 20. Boat People Tales -- 21. The Invisible Man -- 22. Disposition of the Patents -- 23. The Manor World -- 24. The Yankee Doodle Dandies -- 25. The Looming Conflict -- IV. From Revolution to Federalism -- 26. Flight of the Continentals -- 27. The Phoenix and the Rose -- 28. A State on the Run -- 29. The Turning Point -- 30. The Borders War -- 31. A Gallows at Tappan -- 32. With the Army at Newburgh -- 33. Salutations and Adieus -- 34. Twilight and Prelude -- 35. A Hot Summer in Poughkeepsie -- 36. The Death of Federalism -- V. An Emerging Nationalism -- 37. Boy Politicos -- 38. What Rip Van Winkle Saw -- 39. A Pastoral Era -- 40. The Saddlebags -- 41. Steeples Rising -- 42. Feats of the Engineers -- 43. By Water and Rail -- VI. The Romantics -- 44. The Antecedents -- 45. Inventing Diedrich -- 46. Fireside Chats -- 47. Tidewater Literature -- 48. Poe in the Valley -- 49. II Bello e II Buono -- 50. Vanderlyn's Choice -- 51. Three Paintings in a Window -- VII. Coming of Age in the Hudson River Valley -- 52. An Expanding Economy -- 53. The Antebellum Wars -- 54. Calico Warriors -- 55. Destination Ways -- 56. The Croton Bug -- 57. Manifest Destiny News -- VIII. The Rising Fury -- 58. Sam, Gramp and Ren -- 59. Freedom Deferred -- 60. Isabella Journeys -- 61. The Immediatists -- 62. The Struggle -- IX. The Civil War -- 63. The Bearded Stranger -- 64. Mobilizing the Valley -- 65. Custer's First Stand -- 66. Faces Across a Field -- 67. By Pen and by Sword -- 68. Bouquets for Abraham. "Sailing down the river that would later bear his captain's name, explorer Robert Juet described the Hudson River Valley in 1609 as a "drowned land" submerged by a "great lake of water." Over the next two centuries, this drowned landscape would be the site of a truly historic flowering of art, literature, architecture, innovation, and revolutionary fervor--drawing comparisons to another fertile cultural haven built around a mighty river in Western Europe. As historian Vernon Benjamin chronicles, the Hudson River Valley has been a place of contradictions since its first settlement by Europeans. Discovered by an Englishman who claimed it for the Dutch, the region soon became home to the most vibrant trading outpost for the New World colonies--the Island of Manhattan--even as the rest of the valley retained the native beauty that would inspire artists from James Fenimore Cooper to Thomas Cole. Because of its unique geography and proximity to Canada, the Hudson Valley became the major theater for the battle between empires in the French and Indian War. When the colonists united in rebellion against the British several decades later, conflict came to the region once again, with decisive military engagements from Saratoga to West Point to the occupied New York Harbor. In the aftermath, New York emerged as the capital of a new nation, and wealth from the city flowed north to the burgeoning Valley, leading to a renaissance of culture and commerce that is still evident today."--Publisher's website.