Drifting

From the river's headwaters in the Adirondacks, Freeman follows the Hudson south through America's first industrial ghost towns, where ruin begs for rebirth. Next is the Hudson Valley and the river's 153-mile estuary, with its once-teeming fisheries. Here, agriculture is redefining itself, while at West Point, officer candidates train for America's murky modern wars. The Hudson Highlands, too, are prominent, the place where Americans first wed God to nature, and where the mountains remain a potent place to mull that bond. From there it's on to Manhattan, with its skyline that symbolizes the world's financial might as well as its startling fragility.

As controversial as it is comforting, Freeman's narrative makes us think in hard ways about America as the country itself drifts toward an uncertain future. But throughout, of course, is the magnificent Hudson, whose resilient beauty speaks well both to nature's toughness and America's greatest strength--the ability to redirect and change course when necessary.