In this richly illustrated book, Frances F. Dunwell tells the history of the "magical alchemy between a river, its people, and the ideas of the times." Beginning with the age of Dutch exploration and concluding with the environmental cleanup initiatives that set a national precedent for conservation, Dunwell presents a portrait of the river that's as varied as its own landscape. Consulting diaries, maps, books, and letters, she looks at the Hudson through the lenses of the Revolutionary War, the perspective of the Knickerbocker writers and the Hudson River school painters, the "bare-knuckle" era of the robber barons, the industrial age, and the environmental movements launched after the first Earth Day.  (NYS68, $29.95)