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The World Without Us

The World Without Us

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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.

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From: Amazon Posted: Dec 02, 2007 Type: User Review What if we humans weren't, like, here anymore?

"Oh my poor soul, what is to become of you? Where do you go?"
--attributed to Cardinal Jules Mazarin, 1602-1661

If we humans were to, one day, suddenly disappear, what would the world be like? That question is the thesis for...
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4.00 Star Rating
4.00/5
From: Amazon Posted: Dec 01, 2007 Type: User Review Okay, and your point is?

Was this book written by a Democratic liberal apologist for humanity? Ultimately, a book which serves no purpose except to reveal to us that we are insignificant little spiders in the universe.
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2.00 Star Rating
2.00/5
From: Amazon Posted: Dec 01, 2007 Type: User Review Absolutely my number one reccomended book

This book in an incredible but sad wake-up call that more humans need to read. I think most of the people who give it a bad review are doing so because they are put off and made uncomfortable by having to deal with all of the truthful and...
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5.00 Star Rating
5.00/5
From: Amazon Posted: Nov 29, 2007 Type: User Review Basic premise is "People are Bad"

Positive points:
Author is an excellent writer, in a mechanical sense.
Some interesting stories and unusual situations described.

Negative points:
I found reading this book to me more like reading a bunch of magazine...
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2.00 Star Rating
2.00/5
From: Amazon Posted: Nov 29, 2007 Type: User Review The World Without Us

The title was the lure which made me choose the book. The writing was disorganized and the book very unreadable. It was chosen for book club. The consensus was unanimous. One of the worst reads we have had.
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