<DIV><DIV><DIV>On September 12, 1609, Henry Hudson first set eyes on the land that would become Manhattan. It's difficult for us to imagine what he saw, but for more than a decade, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson has been working to do just that. <I>Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City </I>is the astounding result of those efforts, reconstructing, in words and images, the wild island that millions of New Yorkers now call home.<DIV><BR>By geographically matching an 18th-century map of Manhattan's landscape to the modern cityscape, combing through historical and archaeological records, and applying modern principles of ecology and computer modeling, Sanderson is able to re-create the forests of Times Square, the meadows of Harlem, and the wetlands of downtown. Filled with breathtaking illustrations that show what Manhattan looked like 400 years ago, <I>Mannahatta </I>is a groundbreaking work that gives readers not only a window into the past, but inspiration for green cities and wild places of the future.<DIV>&nbsp;<DIV><DIV><I>Library Journal:</I><DIV>"You don't have to be a New Yorker to be enthralled by this book. Highly recommended."<BR><BR><I>San Francisco Chronicle:<BR></I>"[A]n exuberantly written and beautifully illustrated exploration of pre-European Gotham."<BR><BR><I>The New York Times Book Review:</I><BR>"'Mannahatta' is a cartographical detective tale. . ."<BR><BR>"The fact-intense charts, maps and tables offered in abundance here are fascinating, and even kind of sexy. And the middle of the book, the two-page spread of Mannahatta in all its primeval glory-the visual denouement of a decade's research-feels a little like a centerfold."&nbsp;<BR><BR>"Upon closing the book you feel revved up, at the very least, and are likely to see a way to build a future that is more aligned with what once was than with what can no longer be."<BR></DIV>