In Before New York, the famed ecologist Eric W. Sanderson provides the long-awaited sequel to his celebrated Mannahatta — a grand historical atlas of the natural region that became New York City. The culmination of more than 25 years of research, this monumental work features 75 original maps, 200 color illustrations, and nearly 4,000 detailed descriptions of streams, wetlands, rocks, plants, animals, and Indigenous settlements, from before the arrival of Henry Hudson in 1609 until the present day

With the keen eye of a landscape ecologist and the storytelling power of a bestselling historian, Sanderson reconstructs the natural geography of the city as it was in September 1609, just before Henry Hudson's arrival. Imagine what Hudson might have seen, what the Lenape sachems cherished, and what nature itself revealed—long before the arrival of concrete and steel.