Contents -- Introduction -- 1 The River and the Land -- 2 Explorers and Traders -- 3 The Colonizers Arrive -- 4 The Valley Transformed -- 5 The Only Passage -- 6 The Democratic River -- 7 Definers of the Landscape -- 8 River of Fortunes -- 9 Twentieth-Century Waters -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- Map of the Hudson River valley -- Map of Livingston and Rensselaer family lands.