The World Without Us | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Weisman
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  256 reviews
Sales Rank: 1070
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0312427905
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.2
EAN: 9780312427900
ASIN: 0312427905
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
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Product Description
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 Star’s Top 100 Books of the Year 2007
Mother Jones’ Favorite Books of 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Books of the Year 2007
Hudson’s 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 251 more reviews...
interesting visions of the future January 6, 2009
Dylan Murphy (United States)
very interesting book that does a good job of using historical and current phenomenon to illustrate how things would turn out. personally, i love the idea of a world without people and found this to be a very appealing book.
 Illumanist bootlicker January 2, 2009
Kyle B. (Idaho)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved Weisman's "Gaviotas," as a story of hope and possibilities, but romanticizing the Illumanist agenda of killing off all or all but 500,000 (closely-related) humans is hardly laudable. True, humanity has utterly lost its way. The planet is a mess. We're a mess. Read the Ringing Cedars series (Anastasia) if you want to see the path out of the dark wood and glimpse a shining collective future.
 I Should Have Just Read The Essay January 1, 2009
Geoffrey Kleinman (Portland, OR USA)
The World Without us is a fascinating concept book. Looking at how the earth would reclaim the urban sprawl is utterly compelling and fairly depressing. Through exploring this concept the book also deals with deep environmental issues and how we attempt to control the forces of nature in order to exist on the planet.
All this is utterly engaging for a while, and then it just gets old. The book was based on an essay and that's where I think it would be strongest. The book feels bloated and overly fleshed out. Midway through I felt I had gotten everything I would get out of the book, and when I finished I realized I had.
Still a worth wile read if the concept is one which engages you, although I wish I had just read the essay.
Great concept, mediocre execution December 22, 2008
Francis Tapon (San Francisco, CA USA)
PROS:
- Tackles a fascinating thought experiment: what would happen to the planet if humans vanished overnight?
- Excellent research.
- It's hopeful in that it shows just how fast nature will take over, that life goes on and few will really miss our species. Often environmentalists like to think that humans are the worst thing that has ever happened to this planet, but they forget that far more devastation happened when a few asteroids blasted this planet.
- Reaches the correct, but unpopular, conclusion: if you want humans to have less impact on the planet, limit our population growth. Environmentalists who dream of minimizing human impact rarely talk about reversing human's growth rate. We can all live a low-impact existence, but that doesn't help if there are 100 billion of us. With the population doubling every 70 years, we'll get there in just 280 years. Most of the environmental change that we cause is not because we're evil, it's just because we want to live a decent life, just like every other living wants to do.
CONS:
- Lackluster writing. It's tedious, sluggish, and a bit academic. The sentences don't flow and they have awkward construction. It wasn't painful to read, but it wasn't a pleasure either.
- Needs more photos and illustrations. There are a couple of photos, but they're poor quality. To help envision a planet without us, illustrations and photos would have helped.
- Needs more headers and a better layout. It would help make the text more attractive.
CONCLUSION: Although I read many books, I usually buy only one book per year. This was that one book. I was so excited that I wanted this in my library. Although I'd like to re-read it someday, it's not as great as I hoped it would be. I wasn't bad either. If you're interested in this subject, then buy this book despite the criticism. You'll end up learning something, guaranteed. If you're not that interested, then skip it. I gave it four stars because of the conclusion and because it offers an outstanding perspective on this planet and our role in it.
 An eye opener December 16, 2008
Albert Newton
When I read this book, it reminded me of another book I enjoyed, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond. Yet this book put you at a distance as if you were a post-human-era visitor, interested but not panic, leaving room for your rationality to digest the discoveries, while feeling a faint sense of sadness. This was exactly the author had intended. In this aspect, Weisman is very successful and will serve as a good model for others to follow.
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