Sanderson and Boyer invite you to imagine what Manhattan would have looked like to its early explorers; before the skyscrapers, before the crowded sidewalks and the busy intersections of avenues and streets. On the pages of Mannahatta, Sanderson and Boyer take readers on a journey of imagination by geographically matching, or georeferencing, a historical British Headquarts map with a map of modern Manhattan. In addition, Sanderson examined volumes of historical documents and journals and was able to visually reconstruct, down to the city block, what Manhattan looked like four hundred years ago; from the forests of Times Square, to the wetlands of downtown, the meadows of Harlem and the Upper West Side, and the nomadic tribe settlements of Chinatown and the Upper East Side.

Although the lush forests, rolling hills, and flowing streams have long disappeared, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City brings this wild island of Henry Hudson's era to life through insightful text, maps, illustrations and computer visualisations. This book is not only a view of the past, but also an inspiration for a new vision of the future.