Painted riverscapes such as Claude Monet’s impressions of the Seine, Isaak Levitan’s Volga views, or Thomas Cole’s Hudson scenery became iconic not least because they embodied nationalist ideas about place and about culture. At a time when nationalism was taking root across Europe and the United States, the riverscape played an important role in transforming the abstract idea of the nation into a potent visual image. It not only offered a picture of the nation’s physical character, but through aspects such as style, the figures portrayed, and the nature of the implied spectator, it presented a cultural ideal. In this highly original book, Tricia Cusak explores significance of painted riverscapes to the creation of national identities in nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe and America. Focusing on five rivers, the Hudson, the Volga, the Seine, the Thames, and the Shannon, the author outlines the history of the development of national landscapes, elaborating on the distinctive nature of riverscapes. Drawing on the symbolic potential of rivers to represent life and time, the riverscape provided a metaphor for the mythic stream of national history flowing unimpeded out of the past and into the future. For collections in art history, landscape architecture/history, geography, literature, political science, history, and environmental studies, with special relevance for American, British, French, Russian, and Irish studies/history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. ----Choice What Cusack has achieved here is a provocative and persuasive work. It provides a fresh perspective on the imagining of nations in the age of nationalism. Its themes of modernity, emergent nationalism, disease and sanitation, ethnic and civic, and of the role of the worker, peasant or citizen within the class dynamic of the five riverscapes explored here situated this work within the current debate on nationalism, but also moves us beyond it. Each chapter here is informative and persuasive in equal measure, and a short review can hardly do justice to all Cusack has offered us. ----Nations and Nationalism Explores the significance of painted riverscapes for the creation of national identities in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe and America. Tricia Cusack is interested in how ideas about national identity are embodied in visual art. She has published articles on this theme in various journals including Nations and Nationalism , National Identities , The Irish Review, Art History , Visual Culture in Britain and the  Journal of Tourism History.  An edited essay collection Art and Identity at the Water's Edge will be published by Ashgate in 2012.