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The World Without Us (Hardcover)

by Alan Weisman (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 32.00
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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. If a virulent virus—or even the Rapture—depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished? That's the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (An Echo in My Blood) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation. Days after our disappearance, pumps keeping Manhattan's subways dry would fail, tunnels would flood, soil under streets would sluice away and the foundations of towering skyscrapers built to last for centuries would start to crumble. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, anything made of bronze might survive in recognizable form for millions of years—along with one billion pounds of degraded but almost indestructible plastics manufactured since the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, land freed from mankind's environmentally poisonous footprint would quickly reconstitute itself, as in Chernobyl, where animal life has returned after 1986's deadly radiation leak, and in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a refuge since 1953 for the almost-extinct goral mountain goat and Amur leopard. From a patch of primeval forest in Poland to monumental underground villages in Turkey, Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.


From AudioFile

Its almost disturbing that this book is so interesting. Weisman examines what the Earth would be like if there were no more humans. Assuming some sort of apocalypse that wipes us from the menu of mammals, he takes the long view, describing how our remnants would crumble and fade away over time--in some cases a very long time. Narrator Adam Grupper enhances this fascinating perspective through his impeccable reading, which is both sincere and balanced. Never veering into sensationalism, always objective and phlegmatic, Grupper takes what could be a depressing topic and makes it a book you just cant stop listening to. This combination of science, history, and futurology teaches us much about who we are and what we will leave behind. K.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, AudioFile Best Audiobook of 2007 © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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The World Without Us 4.5 out of 5 stars (11)
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and thought-provoking, Oct 28 2007
By L. Fricker (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a beautifully-written and thought-provoking book. Weisman takes us all over the globe to explore what would happen to our artifacts -- buildings, cities, farms, nature preserves, etc. -- if all the humans suddenly disappeared somehow. In some places, within a couple hundred years it would be hard to tell we were ever there. In other cases, our footprint will be seen for aeons.

This book is many things: An homage to the resilience of nature; a tribute to some of the brilliant and enduring things built by humans; a caution about the irreversible harm we are causing to some parts of the planet; and a plea to protect nature by reducing our impact on it.

I found it hard to put this book down. It covers a wide range of topics, all starting from an intriguing premise ("what if the world had to continue without humans"), and presents ideas and challenges that stayed with me after finishing reading it. I highly recommend it.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars What Hath People Wrought?, Sep 24 2007
The World Without Us raises a novel question (What if there were no people left?) that leads to some surprising answers: The best of what we've done wouldn't survive while most of the worst of our work will. The book also serves as an environmental and social critique of human attitudes and behavior.

Mr. Weisman looked across the globe for places where humans have left to see practical examples of what remains. Newer houses and modern buildings soon collapse, leaving behind only the metal and plastic as mementos. Buildings made of stone will, however, last a long time. Manhattan's surface will sink as water floods subway tunnels while filled-in swamps are refilled. Large predators will grow in numbers while pests that depend on us and our garbage like head lice and rats will do poorly. Domestic animals and plants will soon be wiped out. Nuclear plants will soon be spewing radioactive vapor into the atmosphere while leaving behind in-ground radioactivity for tens of thousands of years. The Panama Canal will soon cease to be a barrier to animal migrations between North and South America. Huge forests will reappear.

I don't want to share too many of the answers (or you won't want to read the book), but there are some pretty powerful ironies about what the most lasting aspects of human existence will be. It's worth reading the book just to find that out.

In the process, you'll learn a lot about the mass extinction that is occurring among species that are vulnerable to human influences.

If we look at what the Earth would be like without us, I suspect we'll all change how we behave every day. It's a cautionary lesson that all should heed.

I liked the way the book was organized. Most of the observations are built from specific locales and interviews with those who best know the science involved. I came away with several ideas of places I would like to visit that would never have occurred to me otherwise.

Those who don't want to read a book about how the environment is being damaged will find this book annoying because that secondary message is deeply embedded in the primary message.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking, when it sticks to the subject, Sep 6 2009
By Tony Chu (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The World Without Us (Paperback)
I bought this book thinking it would be an interesting diversion - a sort of whimsical mind experiment. The premise of the book is that something has wiped out all of humankind, but left the earth itself (and pretty much all of the other life forms on it) intact - say for instance a virus that destroys the viability of all human sperm. What I expected to find was the author's speculation about say, what some future archeologists would find as remnants of our civilization - but of course it would all be hypothetical, impossible to verify, and easy to dismiss.

What I got instead was a lot more, and I was pleasantly surprised. Yes I got the information I expected, about what parts of my everyday world would survive the longest and why (and the answers were in some cases not what I expected!). But I also got my eyes opened in a number of other ways. Without giving too much away, I'll just mention three:

Surprise #1 - it turns out there are a number of legacies that we would leave (if we disappeared today) that I hadn't thought of (a few examples - thousands of intact nuclear warheads, millions of CFC/HCFC-containing air conditioners and refrigerators, nuclear waste).

Surprise #2 - there are in fact real situations with real data, where we can see small scale examples of what will happen. Surprisingly, one is the DMZ in Korea - which has been forcibly uninhabited by people for 50 years. Another is Chernobyl (to see what can happen if removal of human monitoring leads to a nuclear meltdown). And it turns out we can learn what will survive from our day-to-day households by seeing what has survived from the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, etc.

Surprise #3 - this is a wide-ranging book. I was impressed by the number of questions that were raised and answered that I had never even thought of. Examples:
a) will cockroaches really inherit the earth?
b) what will happen to all the domesticated dogs and cats?
c) what will happen to underground malls, and other underground structures (like subways, or the "Chunnel" between England and France)
d) what will happen to the Panama Canal?
e) what will happen when there is no more acid rain, insecticide, or crop fertilizer?
etc.

So overall I highly recommend this book. I do have a couple of minor comments, to explain why I didn't give it a 5th star:
1. Anyone who is turned off by reading about how we are ruining the environment is not going to like whole sections of this book (especially the part about how long-lasting plastics and polymers are), and
2. I thought a couple of times the author made topical detours in the book. For instance he describes at some length how mankind is thought to have migrated from Africa and caused the extinction of many large animal speciies in the Americas (apparently there used to be quite a lot of "megafauna" like American lions, giant beavers, giant armadillos, mammoths, etc.) This, while interesting, seemed a bit off topic to me.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The world will be ok...
This was interesting read and Weisman does a good job of encouraging the reader to ponder what will happen if humans were to suddenly be raptured. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Miguel the forester

4.0 out of 5 stars Gone, Baby, Gone
Alan Weisman's THE WORLD WITHOUT US is a sobering look at a possible future, where humans are no longer part of the equation but the Earth, as they say, abides. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Cliff Burns

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating. Mind-boggling at times
The most striking feature is the focus is not on controversial, grand issues like global warming or polution per se. Read more
Published 14 months ago by ocean being

5.0 out of 5 stars Withdrawal symptoms
According to some biologists, the Earth is suffering an "infestation". The afflicting organism, "Homo sapiens" has overrun the planet. Read more
Published on Nov 26 2007 by Stephen A. Haines

5.0 out of 5 stars The single best thing we can do for the environment
The author provides a very important supplement to the growing pro-environmental movement. What I particularly enjoyed about this book was its pitch. Read more
Published on Nov 18 2007 by Eric Draven

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and disturbing
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... Read more
Published on Nov 18 2007 by LJM

5.0 out of 5 stars What will happen to the world if we're not around??
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"Picture a world from which we [humans] all suddenly vanished. Tomorrow...Leave [everything on the Earth's surface] all in place, but extract [all] the human... Read more
Published on Nov 16 2007 by Stephen Pletko

4.0 out of 5 stars Wide-Ranging Overview of the Effects of Humans on Nature
Although the author does discuss what would happen to buildings, roads and a variety of other man-made structures - ancient as well as recent - if humans suddenly ceased to exist,... Read more
Published on Oct 26 2007 by G. Poirier

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