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"The concept of a world devoid of humans is a vivid imagination stirrer. It has been a theme of post-apocalyptic science-fiction books and films for decades. Much of the success of films like Road Warrior and Omega Man/I Am Legend is the titillation of seeing our familiar world laid waste, devoid of humans. Wiseman has taken it out of science fiction by talking to architects, sewer workers, museum archivists, etc., and getting their considered take on what would happen to our creations if humans suddenly disappeared." Doug Brown, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth. In The World without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.
In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.
The World without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dali Lama, and paleontologists — who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths — Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.
From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.
Review:
"If human beings vanished from the Earth, our ceramic pottery and bronze statues would last much longer than our wood-frame houses. New York's subways would be flooded within days; Lexington Avenue would be a river within decades. Head lice would go extinct, and predators would make short work of our doggies, but a lot of endangered fish and birds and trees would flourish in our absence. We endangered... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) them, after all. A diligent and intelligent science writer named Alan Weisman discovered all this while investigating what would happen to this planet if people suddenly disappeared. Now he has converted his thought experiment for Discover magazine into a deeply reported book called 'The World Without Us,' and it's full of interesting facts. For example: The European starling spread like avian kudzu after some Shakespeare buff introduced every bird mentioned by the Bard into Central Park. The demilitarized (and therefore depopulated) zones of Korea and Cyprus have become undeclared wildlife sanctuaries; so have Chernobyl and abandoned forests in New England and Belarus. Almost every ounce of plastic that's ever been manufactured still lurks somewhere in our environment. And radio waves are forever, so extraterrestrials at the edge of the universe might be able to watch 'I Love Lucy' reruns billions of years after we're gone. Who knew? Also: Who cares? Ultimately, 'The World Without Us' is trivia masquerading as wisdom. By journeying around the world to interview biologists and paleontologists, engineers and curators, Zapara elders and Masai ecoguides, Weisman has done a remarkably thorough job of answering a question that doesn't particularly matter. Imagining the human footprint on a post-human planet might be fun for dormitory potheads who have already settled the questions of God's existence and Fergie's hotness, but it's not clear why the rest of us need this level of documentary evidence. It's nice to know that domesticated plants (like wheat) and animals (like horses) would be out-competed by their wild counterparts post-us, but it's not inherently important to know. If the larger point is that our domesticated plants and animals are not really natural, well, that we already know. When Weisman does make larger points, they are achingly familiar. Yes, man is doing foolishly destructive things — like warming the climate with carbon and tearing the peaks off mountains and littering the oceans with plastics — that will have long-term consequences for the Earth. This no longer qualifies as news. And yes, nature and the Earth are resilient, while man and his works — with exceptions such as Mount Rushmore, the caves of Cappadocia, and Styrofoam — are fleeting. Ozymandias could have told us that. And while Weisman is an admirable reporter, his prose — always lucid, sometimes elegant — has an irritating look-ma-I'm-writing quality. This is how he describes one guy he meets: 'His olive features bespeak Sicily; his voice is pure urban New Jersey.' I think he's bespeaking of an 'Italian-American.' It's not an exotic species around Jersey. For all its existential ruminations, this is basically an environmental book, an imaginative effort to make us think about our impact on the Earth. It reminds us: This is a nice Earth! It's going to be around for millions of years, and we're not, so let's stop littering it with nuclear reactors and plastic bags that will leave toxic messes long after we're gone! But as Weisman demonstrates, the Earth will do just fine without us. It's an excellent healer, and time — especially geologic time — is an even better one. Actually, there's a much more compelling reason for us to stop despoiling the Earth and depleting its resources: If we don't, we might create that world without us. As Jared Diamond has shown, unsustainable civilizations tend to collapse; as countless environmental writers have shown, our gas-guzzling, water-wasting, plastic-producing civilization is not sustainable. This is an issue of policy and morality, not just theory. Weisman knows this, but he believes that people don't like to hear about environmental destruction in those apocalyptic terms. It's too scary. He describes his ruminations as a non-threatening effort to change hearts and minds through indirection. If we imagine the world without us — even though Weisman makes it sound as if the world could be better off without us — we might start taking care of it. But just in case this philosophical bank shot proves insufficient, Weisman does offer one modest proposal in his final chapter, his single policy solution to all the planet's problems. And it's preposterous: 'limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.' Sure, right after we ration air, outlaw war and limit teenage masturbation to once a week. Even as a thought experiment, a one-child policy is a terrible idea, a draconian one-size-fits-all solution to a variety of complex problems. (In America, for starters, our problem is overconsumption, not overpopulation.) It's also exactly the kind of nature-first idea that makes environmentalism so threatening to so many people. Humanity's goal should be to limit our impact on the Earth, not to limit our presence on Earth. We don't have to do it for the Earth's sake; we should do it for our own sake. It's our home. At one of those depressingly apocalyptic environmental conferences, I recently heard a speaker give the best argument I've ever heard for saving the Earth: 'It's the only planet we know of that has chocolate.' There probably wouldn't be chocolate in a world without us. And even if there were, it wouldn't do us much good. Michael Grunwald, a senior correspondent at Time magazine, is the author of 'The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise.'" Reviewed by Martin KettleCarlos LozadaGuy VanderhaegheJordana HornJohn McQuaidRobert PinskyJonathan YardleyDavid GreenbergRon CharlesElizabeth WardMichael Grunwald, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Review:
"Weisman is a thoroughly engaging and clarion writer fueled by curiosity and determined to cast light rather than spread despair. His superbly well researched and skillfully crafted stop-you-in-your-tracks report stresses the underappreciated fact that humankind's actions create a ripple effect across the web of life." Booklist (starred review)
Review:
"I don't think I've read a better non-fiction book this year.... [Weisman] writes like Malcolm Gladwell and John McPhee mashed together and set on fast-forward." Lev Grossman, Time online
Review:
"A sober, analytical elucidation of the effects of human dominance on this planet, intriguing if not especially comforting. This book should be broadly read and discussed." Library Journal (starred review)
Review:
"Weisman's description of buildings crumbling slowly and the subsequent incursion of vegetation are at once beautiful and disturbing." Bookreporter.com
Review:
"[S]o intellectually fascinating, so oddly playful, that it escapes categorizing and clichés.... Written as if by a compassionate and curious observer on another planet, [Weisman's] book restores a sense of wonder not just to one little piece of the cosmos, but to the human race whose amazing deeds have transformed it, and whose equally monumental folly now threatens it." Gary Kamiya, Salon.com
Review:
"Extraordinarily farsighted. A beautiful and passionate jeremiad against deforestation, climate change, and pollution."
Boston Globe
Review:
"A refreshing, and oddly hopeful, look at the fate of the environment."
BusinessWeek
Review:
"Alan Weisman has produced, if not a bible, at least a Book of Revelation." Newsweek
Review:
"An astonishing mass of reportage that envisions a world suddenly bereft of humans." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Review:
"Weisman turns the destruction of our civilization and the subsequent rewilding of the planet into a Hollywood-worthy, slow-motion disaster spectacular and feel-good movie rolled into one....[His] gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out." Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times Book Review
Synopsis:
A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence
Synopsis:
Discover the impact of the human footprint in The World Without Us. Take us off the Earth and what traces of us would linger? And which would disappear? Alan Weisman writes about which objects from today would vanish without us; how our pipes, wires, and cables would be pulverized into an unusual (but mere) line of red rock; why some museums and churches might be the last human creations standing; how rats and roaches would struggle without us; and how plastic, cast-iron, and radio waves may be our most lasting gifts to the planet.
But The World Without Us is also about how parts of our world currently fare without a human presence (Chernobyl; a Polish old-growth forest, the Korean DMZ) and it looks at the human legacy on Earth, both fleeting and indelible. It's narrative nonfiction at its finest, taking an irresistible concept with gravity and a highly-readable touch.
Some examples of what would happen:
· One year: Several more billions birds will live when airplane warning lights cease blinking.
· Twenty years: The water-soaked steel columns that support the street above New York's East Side would corrode and buckle. As Lexington Avenue caves in, it becomes a river.
· 100,000 years: CO2 will be back to pre-human levels (or it might take longer).
· Forever: Our radio waves, fragmented as they may be, will still be going out.
Synopsis:
Time #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Entertainment Weekly #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award
Salon Book Awards 2007
Amazon Top 100 Editors Picks of 2007 (#4)
Barnes and Noble 10 Best of 2007: Politics and Current Affairs
Kansas City Stars Top 100 Books of the Year 2007
Mother Jones Favorite Books of 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Books of the Year 2007
Hudsons Best Books of 2007
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Books of 2007
St. Paul Pioneer Press Best Books of 2007
If human beings disappeared instantaneously from the Earth, what would happen? How would the planet reclaim its surface? What creatures would emerge from the dark and swarm? How would our treasured structures--our tunnels, our bridges, our homes, our monuments--survive the unmitigated impact of a planet without our intervention? In his revelatory, bestselling account, Alan Weisman draws on every field of science to present an environmental assessment like no other, the most affecting portrait yet of humankind's place on this planet.
Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist whose reports have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Discover, and on NPR, among others. A former contributing editor to The Los Angeles Times Magazine, he is a senior radio producer for Homelands Productions and teaches international journalism at the University of Arizona. His essay "Earth Without People" (Discover magazine, February 2005), on which The World Without Us expands, was selected for Best American Science Writing 2006.
Mary Picard, January 1, 2010 (view all comments by Mary Picard)
This past year, I overcame my fear to be astounded and comforted by "The World without Us." As an ardent environmentalist and secular humanist, I expected to experience revulsion, and I did, while reading this book. I also experienced fascination, astonishment, and even comfort, as I was transported from the "Polish Statue" in Central Park to aboriginal forest in eastern Europe, and beyond. The comfort came from considering that the beauty and diversity of life on earth is greater than the myopic stupidity of the human race.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
MindyBuchanan, August 6, 2009 (view all comments by MindyBuchanan)
This is a super interesting book - and a HUGE downer. Nevertheless, I have to give it five stars. There were times I just had to put the book down and read something a little less intense. I will admit that it's easy to get bogged down by Weisman's style. Though some of his thoughts are funny (in a scary way), there are times when the technical explanations are tough to get through. I would say this is both a good and bad book to read before bed. Good because, it doesn't take long to get tired of the technical, bad because it will seriously give you nightmares or ulcers. It remains, however, an important and interesting read.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (6 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
Product details
432 pages
Thomas Dunne Books -
English9780312347291
Reviews:
"Review A Day"
by Doug Brown, Powells.com,
"The concept of a world devoid of humans is a vivid imagination stirrer. It has been a theme of post-apocalyptic science-fiction books and films for decades. Much of the success of films like Road Warrior and Omega Man/I Am Legend is the titillation of seeing our familiar world laid waste, devoid of humans. Wiseman has taken it out of science fiction by talking to architects, sewer workers, museum archivists, etc., and getting their considered take on what would happen to our creations if humans suddenly disappeared." (read the entire Powells.com review)
"Review"
by Booklist (starred review),
"Weisman is a thoroughly engaging and clarion writer fueled by curiosity and determined to cast light rather than spread despair. His superbly well researched and skillfully crafted stop-you-in-your-tracks report stresses the underappreciated fact that humankind's actions create a ripple effect across the web of life."
"Review"
by Lev Grossman, Time online,
"I don't think I've read a better non-fiction book this year.... [Weisman] writes like Malcolm Gladwell and John McPhee mashed together and set on fast-forward."
"Review"
by Library Journal (starred review),
"A sober, analytical elucidation of the effects of human dominance on this planet, intriguing if not especially comforting. This book should be broadly read and discussed."
"Review"
by Bookreporter.com,
"Weisman's description of buildings crumbling slowly and the subsequent incursion of vegetation are at once beautiful and disturbing."
"Review"
by Gary Kamiya, Salon.com,
"[S]o intellectually fascinating, so oddly playful, that it escapes categorizing and clichés.... Written as if by a compassionate and curious observer on another planet, [Weisman's] book restores a sense of wonder not just to one little piece of the cosmos, but to the human race whose amazing deeds have transformed it, and whose equally monumental folly now threatens it."
"Review"
by Boston Globe,
"Extraordinarily farsighted. A beautiful and passionate jeremiad against deforestation, climate change, and pollution."
"Review"
by BusinessWeek,
"A refreshing, and oddly hopeful, look at the fate of the environment."
"Review"
by Newsweek,
"Alan Weisman has produced, if not a bible, at least a Book of Revelation."
"Review"
by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
"An astonishing mass of reportage that envisions a world suddenly bereft of humans."
"Review"
by Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times Book Review,
"Weisman turns the destruction of our civilization and the subsequent rewilding of the planet into a Hollywood-worthy, slow-motion disaster spectacular and feel-good movie rolled into one....[His] gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out."
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
Discover the impact of the human footprint in The World Without Us. Take us off the Earth and what traces of us would linger? And which would disappear? Alan Weisman writes about which objects from today would vanish without us; how our pipes, wires, and cables would be pulverized into an unusual (but mere) line of red rock; why some museums and churches might be the last human creations standing; how rats and roaches would struggle without us; and how plastic, cast-iron, and radio waves may be our most lasting gifts to the planet.
But The World Without Us is also about how parts of our world currently fare without a human presence (Chernobyl; a Polish old-growth forest, the Korean DMZ) and it looks at the human legacy on Earth, both fleeting and indelible. It's narrative nonfiction at its finest, taking an irresistible concept with gravity and a highly-readable touch.
Some examples of what would happen:
· One year: Several more billions birds will live when airplane warning lights cease blinking.
· Twenty years: The water-soaked steel columns that support the street above New York's East Side would corrode and buckle. As Lexington Avenue caves in, it becomes a river.
· 100,000 years: CO2 will be back to pre-human levels (or it might take longer).
· Forever: Our radio waves, fragmented as they may be, will still be going out.
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
Time #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Entertainment Weekly #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award
Salon Book Awards 2007
Amazon Top 100 Editors Picks of 2007 (#4)
Barnes and Noble 10 Best of 2007: Politics and Current Affairs
Kansas City Stars Top 100 Books of the Year 2007
Mother Jones Favorite Books of 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Books of the Year 2007
Hudsons Best Books of 2007
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Books of 2007
St. Paul Pioneer Press Best Books of 2007
If human beings disappeared instantaneously from the Earth, what would happen? How would the planet reclaim its surface? What creatures would emerge from the dark and swarm? How would our treasured structures--our tunnels, our bridges, our homes, our monuments--survive the unmitigated impact of a planet without our intervention? In his revelatory, bestselling account, Alan Weisman draws on every field of science to present an environmental assessment like no other, the most affecting portrait yet of humankind's place on this planet.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
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