With its shimmering vistas of fog, light, & cityscape, San Francisco Bay is famous worldwide--yet very little known. The bay, together with its inland delta, is one of the largest estuaries in the Americas. It is a crucial bird habitat, a vital fishery, a major shipping center, a source of precious water, a playground for its cities, a natural treasure in trouble, & a stirring challenge to our human stewardship. John Hart`s lyrical writing & David Sanger`s eye-opening color photographs reveal this marvel hidden in plain sight--its varied past, its complicated present, & its promising future. Hart & Sanger journey back through the bay`s history, introducing its native cultures, describing its ecology, & tracing its urban & industrial development. They take us with them on a tanker bound upriver, to a duck hunter`s blind at dawn, to a delta island when the migratory sandhill cranes come in, to the strange white fields where salt is harvested. & they tell the story of how the plucky local movement to save the bay began & evolved into a grand effort--maybe the grandest yet attempted--to repair a damaged organ of the living world. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions of the Audubon Society, of The Bay Institute of San Francisco, & of the Director`s Circle of the Associates of the University of California Press in support of this publication.