A bold new account of explorer Henry Hudson and the discovery that changed the course of history.

The year 2009 marks the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the majestic river that bears his name. Just in time for this milestone, Douglas Hunter, sailor, scholar, and storyteller, has written the first book-length history of the 1609 adventure that put New York on the map.

Hudson was commissioned by the mighty Dutch East India Company to find a northeastern passage over Russia to the lucrative ports of China. But the inscrutable Hudson, defying his orders, turned his ship around and instead headed west—far west—to the largely unexplored coastline between Spanish Florida and the Grand Banks.

Once there, Hudson began a seemingly aimless cruise—perhaps to conduct an espionage mission for his native England—but eventually dropped anchor off Coney Island. Hudson and his crew were the first Europeans to visit New York in more than eighty years, and soon went off the map into unexplored waters.

Hudson's discoveries reshaped the history of the new world, and laid the foundation for New York to become a global capital. Hunter has shed new light on this rogue voyage with unprecedented research. Painstakingly reconstructing the course of the Half Moon from logbooks and diaries, Hunter offers an entirely new timeline of Hudson's passage based on innovative forensic navigation, as well as original insights into his motivations.

Half Moon offers a rich narrative of adventure and exploration, filled with international intrigue, backstage business drama, and Hudson's own unstoppable urge to discover. This brisk tale re-creates the espionage, economics, and politics that drove men to the edge of the known world and beyond.

Reviews for Half Moon:

“[Douglas Hunter] is also an experienced sailor, and his observations of nautical life are astute… Behind that, a picture emerges of Hudson as a wily operator who knew what he wanted to find, and where he wanted to go to find it - and wasn’t about to tell his merchant backers any more than they needed to know so they would give him a ship. Hunter provides a fine account of Hudson’s wheeling and dealing, and the hoodwinking of the Dutch and English backers of his various voyages.”—Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

"Before he exited the history of exploration in 1611 as recounted in Fatal Journey, by Peter Mancall (2009), Henry Hudson established his place in it by discovering New York’s Hudson River in 1609. Hunter’s study reconstructs that feat with attention to the genesis of the voyage, assessment of Hudson’s goals, and a day-to-day rendering of events. Hired by the Dutch East India Company to probe a northeast passage north of Russia, Hudson ignored his orders and absconded, it seems, with the Half Moon for North America to find the Northwest Passage. Speculating that Hudson might have been in cahoots with English interests, Hunter continues with the more confidently known aspects of the odyssey. Combining geographical knowledge Hudson probably gleaned from prior adventurers with a chronicle kept by Half Moon sailor Robert Juet, Hunter delivers a vivid rendition of Hudson’s entrance into New York Bay, ascent to the future site of Albany, and peaceful and violent encounters with the native peoples. Fans of the era of discovery will delight in Hunter’s history of Hudson’s famed expedition."—Booklist

"Poring over hydrographic charts and picking through often-sparse historical material, Hunter assembles a comprehensive timeline of the 400-year-old voyage, but his firm grasp of the politics and history of Hudson’s time make the book stand out. Insightful look at Hudson, his pivotal achievement and the world events surrounding it.”—Kirkus Reviews

"... few will resist the colorful personal conflicts, tortuous politics and alternately friendly and vicious encounters between Europeans and Native Americans.”—Publishers Weekly