Excellent book. Full of information on what we are doing to our environment and food for thought as to possible solutions. Definitely not a scare tactic treatise like many environmentalist-type books tend to be, but a honest look at where we've come from, and where we're going. Things look OK and manageable. The things we've made will take a long time to disappear. The things that we've thrown into the oceans will take a millennium to degraded. They eventually will, but how will the environment deal with them? Unlike many articles on the environment, this book doesn't preach about stopping development right away for the sake of the Earth. The term "sustained development" comes to mind. We need to keep going, but at a conscious pace. I remember a phrase from the movie "Jurassic Park" where Dr. Malcolm (the chaotician) tells the group around the lunch table that we are so consumed with the excitement of what we "can" do but we never stop to think if we "should." We need to keep building. We need to keep advancing. How we do it seems to be the problem. The book does conclude nicely though. There's a sense that all is not lost and that there is a consciousness among the offenders that things just cannot continue this way. There are many programs in the developed world to recycle waste and not treat the Earth as a dumping ground. An excellent read indeed.

The book is exceptionally well written. The subject content is extemely important and broken up into easily readable but stunning segments.

When I say difficult to read, I don't mean that "The World Without Us" is unusually dense or technical. Weisman's various explorations of how the world would be if the problem of humans was removed are fascinating, informative, accessible, and at times downright alarming and scary (the section about plastics blew my mind - I had never thought about seemingly harmless plastics in such a way before). However, his vignettes are sometimes unrelated or irrelevant to one another and there is no overreaching logic or organization in the book other than the question, "What if humans disappeared today?" There are also many frustrating digressions that interrupt or distract during the vignettes. However, I still recommend it for its thought-provoking value for those who are willing to transcend its organizational chaos.

this book is getting a lot of press.
a clever idea, each chapter takes on a particular way that the absence of human beings would effect the world.

part of it's attraction to me is the new trivia that i learned from the book, a life long obsession, it is a real treat to have so many details that i was unaware of.

but the big picture is really the question, what would happen to cities and nuclear power plants and such if we humans just 'poof' gone?

but even more to the point, what is our real impact on the environment? this book goes a long way towards putting together the pieces which will result in answering these important questions.

i found the short chapter 13-the world without war, the most fascinating, it is basically about the dmz in korea. and would recommend reading it first if you are sitting in a bookstore or library trying to decide whether to try the book or not. the chapters are more self contained essays and reading any one of them will help you see what the book is about and the author's style.

This book was a selection for our non-fiction book club at our local library. I agree with the quote on the front of the book by Bill KcKibben; that this book is "a tremendous feat of imaginative reporting". It was both extremely informative and depressing all at once. Still not sure if it qualifies as non-fiction or not, but much of the information, data, and statistics were very much real. For those interested in the future of the earth, it's worth a read.

..Had me in laughing tears over the imagination of the writer in fits of ecstasy and rapturous delight as he typed out the pages. And then rushing into the bushes buck naked to be One with Lady Gaia!... ..Before coming back in for the bug solvents and creams for all the bites and poisonous plants out there that he ran into. I'm sure the profits of the book will calm his Rage over all those Thousands of Trees that where sacrificed for this Cautionary tome....

I give it FIVE STARS for its' laugh out humor and tree hugging - and then cutting delight!

What would happen to the world if, sometime in the immediate future, without a catastrophe that damaged the planet, every human on Earth were to disappear? This is the premise of The World Without Us, which explores the effect of man's absence across the the world: the swift disintegration of homes and cities, the long-lasting effects of pollution and plastic, the health and death of flora and fauna. The topic is interesting and eye-opening, but the book leaves something to be desired. The narrative lacks structure and the voice is stinted, and while Weisman discusses, in detail, the damage done by man, the premise cripples the usefulness of the book: he does not provide any alternative, any advice on how his readers can change or control their impact on the earth in the likely event that mankind doesn't disappear tomorrow. As a result, this book is a long and painful read, and its grim message, although well worth hearing, is rendered useless by the lack of real-world advice. I don't recommend it.

I found The World Without Us disappointing and depressing--but I don't disagree with Weisman's message. Urban skyscrapers and suburban houses may swiftly crumble without human occupation, but some effects of human habitation on earth--extinction, introduced species, pollution, plastics, nuclear waste--will be remain for thousands or millions of years, whether we stay or disappear. Pulling on past events, longterm trends, some theorizing, and a wealth of research, Weisman shows both sides: those which would bounce back, and those which may never be rid of humanity's indelible mark. The hopeful improvements are overwhelmed by the negative lasting impact, especially when Weisman concedes that mankind will probably still be around tomorrow and the the centuries to come. The message is depressing but it is also true, and it serves as grim and brutal wakeup call to the reader: by nature of our very existence, exacerbated by modern life, humans damage the planet that we inhabit.

This message is true, but it is also little more than depressing because Weiman fails to provide any information about what mankind can take to decrease their negative impact on the planet. He provides no information about positive effects, nothing on potential change, no advice local or large. If anything, Weisman makes it seem as if there is nothing we can do--the damage done is too great, and humanity as a whole has no desire to change, so we will continue to harm the planet for as long as we live here. The reader has nothing to take away except for complete hopelessness. As a result, the book is long and slow, depressing to read and difficult to pick back up each time you set it down--factors which are exacerbated by the apparent lack of structure, which leaves the book's many subtopics floating unconnected, and Weisman's stinted writing style, which reads not unlike a newspaper article and makes for tedious style to fill an entire book.

In short, The World Without Us is depressing. It is depressing because it offers unsettling information about the impact that humans have on the planet, information which is true and well worth reading. However, the book fails to be a dire warning with the potential to urge its readers to action; instead, it offers no hope, no action, no real-world application at all. Compounded by mediocre writing, I simply can't recommend this book. The premise is fascinating and the content is meaningful, but in the end this book is simply too difficult to read with too little redeeming content. I don't recommend it.

There's just too much darn plastic everywhere. Once it gets in the ocean, it doesn't leave. That stuff will be constipating fish and zooplankton long after the E.P.A. mandates that all plastic products be made out of stuff that doesn't contain any plastic. I say take all the plastic waste and throw it in with all the nuclear waste in some mountain in a country we don't take kindly to (but we should put a lock on a fence around the mountain so the bad guys don't make terrorist trinkets with all that junk). The real problem is that there are just too many people messing up the planet (as usual). Weisman didn't mention Wal-Mart by name as an entity messing up the planet (not to mention such nice neighborhoods as Inglewood), but I bet he sure wanted to. Of course, I personally have nothing against Wal-Mart except for all those darn shoppers that keep getting in my way while I'm trying to buy stuff. To sum it all up: we are all going to die and take out a whole bunch of biomass in the process because of our [as a species] gross and negligent industrializational [spiffy new word, eh?] by-products and plastic. But once we are all dead and really long, long, long gone but before the sun goes super-charged-Nova (which is just plain silly and a waste of money and gas) and fries our dearly beloved planet to a crisp memory: THEN the earth will be a truly great place to live or at least vacation.

I had only heard a very brief description of The World Without Us, and caught a brief snatch of the author being interviewed ona BBC Radio Prog.
My imagination was fired up from these brief moments and I bought the book almost immediately. I could not put it down once I started reading it. I read it over two evenings, and I am now in a second reading of the book. The science in the first part of the book is pitched at lay-man level and very easily understood. Throughout the book I was so impressed with what must have been a mammoth task undertaken by the author, going to many parts of the world to uncover the facts which abound in this book. I have to loan the book out to my immediate family soon, as they are fed up with me going on about it!

A beautifully researched and written book, the kind you simply cannot put down once you start reading. While I (like some other readers) expected this to be solely about what would happen to manmade things if humans somehow disappeared, I'm glad Weisman stretched the premise. By interviewing expects in many fields, he shows what we as a species have done/are doing to this world. It's a real eye-opener -- and, yes, endlessly fascinating.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started to read "The World Without Us." Its premise is intriguing--what would happen if an unspecified global catastrophe, such as a highly selective disease, completely wiped out the human race but left unscathed the buildings, roadways, cities, bridges, factories, shopping malls and other cultural and technological artifacts of civilization? How long would it take for the slow but inexorable forces of rot, decay and erosion to eradicate all evidence of the existence of homo sapiens on the Earth? What effect would the vanishing of the human race have on the other fauna and flora with which we now share our ecosystem?

I thought "The Earth Without Us" would be rather dry. One of the things I expected to find was an analysis of how a typical city would decay over time. Without humans around to repair them, for example, roofs would soon begin to leak, letting in rain, snow and dirt. Then the interiors would become habitats for rats, birds, feral dogs and cats and other creatures. Then the mortar between bricks would crumble, and exterior walls would fail. Steel bridges would rust away and crumble, etc., etc. I didn't see how author Alan Weisman could sustain such an analysis for a few hundred pages without becoming repetitive and boring. Well, there IS such an analysis, but it is neither repetitive nor boring. There is MUCH more to "The World Without Us."

It is actually nothing less than a superb, wide-ranging, single-volume evaluation of the myriad effects that humans have had on the Earth over the millennia, and of the ways in which natural processes might eliminate those effects in the far future (if ever). It is a highly readable, lively, scientifically accurate ecological primer that explains, in terms that anyone can understand, the environmental issues that often capture today's headlines--ozone depletion, PCBs, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), nonbiodegradable plastics, global warming, and a host of others. "The World Without Us" is also an eloquent wake-up call. For example, the chapter "Hot Legacy" explores what would happen to commercial nuclear power plants and their waste-storage facilities if humans were no longer around to tend them. Imagine the Soviet Chernobyl disaster repeated 441 times--the number of nuclear power plants in the world. This chapter should be required reading for anyone who thinks that building more nuclear power plants is the answer to the world's energy problems.

I cannot recommend "The Earth Without Us" too highly. I doubt that it can convert diehard anti-environmentalists--nor do I think that is its purpose. But it is an immensely valuable and informative resource for those who believe that humans HAVE adversely affected the earth, and who think it may not be too late to do something about it. A "must read" for every thoughtful homo sapien.

I really enjoyed the book and unlike some reviewers, did not feel like I was being chastised but rather, I felt more informed. I had never heard of the tiny polyethylene beads/granules before this book but discovered them in several liquid soaps we buy, even ones that touted "natural" essences. The book also includes a lot of history--how things were; such as how New York numerous brooks and streams, what plants/trees were native, and typically seques into how thing might revert back to that state or which newer species might survive. I found the history just as interesting as what the world might look like if humans were suddenly gone.

I have extensively reviewed this book for another publication, and I have to agree with all those who noted a certain "bait-and-switch" tactic employed by Weisman. There is not as much science in this book as a fully worked-out thought experiment should contain. It reads not so much as a tale of the world without us as it does a lamentation over what we have done to the world.

I give it two stars on the Amazon rating system because Weisman is indeed capable of some emotionally resonant writing. I would recommend the chapters on Cappadocia and the Korean Demilitarized Zone as coming closest to justifying the price of admission. My complete review can be read at southern literary messenger (all one word) dot com. It's in issue #1, and it's called Declinism Declined.

The World Without Us is a journey of discovery that shows us what the Earth may be like after mankind disappears, for whatever reason, and nature is allowed to take over without barriers or man made order being forced onto it each and every day. What will happen to our pets? What would happen to our cities? What would happen to all our stuff? The plastic bags? The steel cars? The power plants? The atomic missiles?
Well, nature would do its best to break it all down, to clean it up, to absorb it and change it into something useful. That's what would happen. Poisons would be washed away, cats would go wild and trees would grow in such numbers that soon the forests would cover much of the Earth.
Is this book a warning? There are warnings within the pages, sure. Is it a suggestion on how future generations could change the way we live and, in the end, save both ourselves and the planet Earth? Yes, it is. And maybe we should listen. Because there is no turning back. Even if we stopped doing all the stupid things we do RIGHT now, it would take thousands, if not millions, of years for the damage we have done to be undone.
A great general resource for those of us who enjoy seeing all the links in the web of life. And hope that one day we may start knotting the threads back together.

As a confessed lover of post-apocalyptic fiction, I was instantly sold on the concept of this book...someone did the research, talked to the scientists, and is theorizing about what would *really* happen in the 'world without us.' How would our cities fare; how would the rainforests and deserts be reclaimed; how long would the Pyramids, Mt. Rushmore, and the Great Wall of China last; when would tectonic activity plow even our nuclear waste into the core of the Earth?

Unfortunately, despite some very interesting teasers and an obviously large volume of research, that is not what this book is about. This book is a warning...chapter after chapter containing description of the "damage" that humans are doing to the Earth, with a decided one-sided style that made me feel chastised for the better part of this book's 275 pages. This sort of information has its place...and I am even in agreement with the sentiment...but this book left me feeling tricked.

I still gave two stars because there are indeed some very interesting thought experiments and case studies into the 'world without us'...including nature's reclamation of Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Varosha on Cyprus, the rapid downfall of New York City in the absence of proper maintenance, and isolated Pacific islands recovering from long-absent human activity. Many of the examples above, such as Mt. Rushmore, the Pyramids, and nuclear waste were given some service. It was because of these juicy bits that I continued to the end...but those looking to check on the reality of "I Am Legend" or "Battlefield Earth" are sure to be disappointed.

I read about this book in the newspaper and though as an engineering student that the idea was interesting. How would the world look without us?

The book begins with discussing how sewers would collapse in cities, but then begins discussing how man evolved in Africa and populated the rest of the world. This was not really what I expected.

All in all the book contains some thought provoking points, but there is just too much stuff that I didn't really expect. I guess I'd expected something more 'technical' about how cities would break down, nuclear waste being spread etc.

Anyone with a smidgen of intelligence knows the earth and all its inhabitants would be better off without humans. And this book points out in well researched detail exactly how that could happen. As one who continuously gets frustrated at the ignorant and elitist attitude of people who share this world with thousands of other species, this well written and often amusing book gives me hope that if we don't get our act together, then the earth will recover.

This book reminded me a lot of The Fate of the Earth, but its tone is much more hopeful. I don't know if the message is that we don't really have to worry about our earth because it is remarkably resilient, but I doubt it. It seems more a justification for green living. I'm not sure what I think about the international call for a one-child policy -- the policy doesn't work well in China -- but the point is taken, that we are using up our resources faster than we can replenish them. The author toured the world for the material for this book, and his descriptions of nuclear waste sites, and garbage vortexes, and plastics recovery, as well as his geological and anthropological excursions are really fascinating.

Weisman did his research and his efforts definitely show in his creative take on the post-human world. Although not all parts are interesting simply because of the heap of scientific information, (such as the Petro Patch in Texas) Weisman does a great job in other chapters of siphoning loads of information to his readers. My personal favorite among the chapters is "The African Paradox", in which Weisman explains why Africa, unlike the other continents is "preserved". However, not all the chapters deal with the post-human world, but rather the pre-sapien world and the persistence of nature in No Man's Land such as Chernobyl, the DMZ in Korea, or the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. It is interesting to see how man-made architecture or materials will continue to exist despite the absence of their creators, most astoundingly, an underground network of rooms, cellars, and even stables. Readers looking for a glimpse of civilization's afterlife will delight in Weisman's The World Without Us.

This is a fantastic book with many very interesting real-world examples. After reading this book I feel much more educated about very pertinent topics such as waste management, recycling, the effect of creating nature reserves, urbanization, and much more! Another great thing about this is book is that includes a lot of scientific theory to back up the authors main arguments, but it's written in a very engaging fashion, unlike a dry science book. Highly recommended!

The author provides some interesting detail on what may happen in a world without us but more often than not, bemoans the human races legacy and it's countless perceived missteps. The factual information is often overwhelmed with a preachy admonishment of the human race. Little of the book is actually dedicated to pondering a future without us.

Broken into several weeks of reading chapter by chapter - this book is chockfull of interesting tidbits. As a book to sit down and read - it's disjointed and kind of duct-taped together. And the final chapter - while having some of the sharpest humor in the book - is also a little too new age granola crunchy to enjoy thoroughly.

Weisman's premise of a World Without Us (henceforth, WWU) is an excercise in thinking, rather than experimenting. Not only because we obviously ARE here on earth, but because if humans WERE to go extinct, it would likely be from something that would have a big impact on the rest of the world, too. (ie nuclear war, asteroid impact...) He considers a WWU where *blip!* suddenly all people instantly disappear. Not gonna happen, but thinking about "what if it did?" leads to some really interesting areas.

People are part of earth's environtment, so the concept of a WWU lets Weisman explore things such as: how big a part? How would our creations, like cities or technology, last without us? Would some of the things we've done to the environment last forever, or eventually revert? How would the ecosystem adapt to our absence?

The book meanders around a fair amount. It opens with a fascinating chapter on how long Manhattan's human-built objects would last without humans to maintain them. Indeed, Weisman touches on a lot of intriguing revelations. Some animals fare better than others in our absence (cockroaches - not as well as you might think!) Different marvels of engineering, such as Mount Rushmore or the Panama Canal, fare differently. In the height of irony, he tells about an endangered bird species that's a symbol of peace, which survives today only because war keeps a certain area free of people. Plastics, nuclear waste and pesticides are discussed, and how long-term their impact is gets pondered. How the world reached where it is today, including its pre-human history, is looked to as an example of where it might revert to in the WWU.

There's really no grand, unifying conclusion to all this pondering, but the avenues it leads to are well worth traveling.

If humanity disappeared very suddenly, what would happen to the Earth? What would become of everything left behind? Alan Weisman explores a wide range of areas and subjects in detailing humanity's final traces, from New York City to Kenya, the Pacific ocean to deep space, from the actions of ancient civilizations to those of imperialist American presidents and modern bronze sculptors. It is both a diligently researched supposition of a post-human world and an environmental warning bell, one more engaging and varied than most.
I ordered this book expecting something like a research paper for a post-apocalyptic story. This book is far beyond that, dealing in time scales much longer than human lifetimes and delving as much into the past as the future, exploring the impact of humans on this planet since we came out of the trees. The book is neatly organized into areas of examination, such as plant and animal life, technological advancements, structures and art, and of course, where to go from here. What surprised me most about the book was how much it affected me. In particular, the chapter on plastics, entitled "Polymers Are Forever," was genuinely upsetting with its vivid descriptions of tons of plastic floating forever on the surface of the ocean.
But the book is not completely dour. In every chapter, the author offers alternate perspectives or glimmers of hope, in the persistence and mutability of life or in the nature of humans themselves. This book will fascinate anybody interested in science, anthropology, or the progress of humanity. It is thoughtful, meticulously researched, well-written in an easily readable style, and goes into every corner of the globe to provide a balanced picture of what we will leave behind. The scope of the book was surprising, but delightful.

The World Without Us is an excellent book in which Alan Weisman deftly describes what the world might be like if humans simply disappeared. But, rather than instructing us about the future, the book is really most poignant if it is viewed as a commentary on our own times. In asking - and attempting to answer - the question "What would happen to Earth if humans simply vanished?" the author has devised a lens by which we might examine the consequences of our habits, lifestyles, and use of resources. How does our use of plastics affect nature? How do our buildings, cars, energy production and consumption, death rites, and agriculture affect the world in which we live? How have we changed, and how do we continue to change, our own habitat?

Weisman could not possibly answer all these questions in one volume and do any of them any justice, but I nevertheless found his work well researched and his ideas well formulated. When reading the book, you get the sense that Weisman is genuinely concerned about his topic, the people who read his work, and the quality of his writing. He approaches his work with care, and the result is an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable read.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Weisman's book is the fact that it makes some rather complex science accessible to readers without formal scientific training. Although I have a PhD in Conservation Biology, I don't think I needed it to enjoy or understand The World Without Us. My friends with non-science backgrounds could easily pick up the book and understand it. In fact, I think they should, and I also think they'll enjoy it.

The enjoyment comes from the "What if..." nature of the book. It is human nature to speculate, but scientists normally tend to be quite reserved and cautious in their speculation. This book allows your imagination to run wild, it allows you to ask "What if..." and then think about all the myriad answers - and new questions - that come flooding into your consciousness.

My only two criticisms of the book are that it needs more maps and it needs a chapter on freshwater habitats. The maps will help readers orient themselves and understand the places and ideas that Weisman discusses. The chapter on freshwater (there is already a chapter on marine ecosystems) is needed for several reasons: we drink fresh water, we alter freshwater habitats in myriad and very harmful ways (dams, dikes, canals, invasive species, draining wetlands, etc.), and most pollution that ends up in the ocean is dumped into freshwater first.

Weisman's thought experiment is well worth reading and ought to be required for all high school and college students. By asking us to consider what would happen if we were all suddenly to disappear, we learn a lot about the impact of our presence. It's a valuable lesson, both for it's approach and the messages it conveys. The approach - encouraging the reader to think about the consequences of our existence by taking a moment to consider the consequences of our disappearance - touches on critical thinking skills that all students should learn. The message - that we need to clean up our act with all haste - is a much-needed warning, albeit one that may already be too late. Combining these two aspects creates an especially powerful effect because it leads the reader to the warning via a thoughtful and introspective approach that is uncommon in the environmental literature. Rather than beating us over the head with a sign (or book) that exclaims "The End Times are Coming!" Wiiesman wisely leads us to less dire but equally powerful conclusions on our own.

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did. I realize that not all of Weisman's arguments are compelling, but I do think you will find his writing accessible and thought provoking nonetheless.

~norm leonard

There is some fascinating information in The World Without Us. The chapter on nuclear waste for example is extremely compelling (and exactly the type of information I was hoping to find in a book like this). Weisman's book shines when it stays focused on its premise, `what would happen to the planet if human beings suddenly disappeared.'

As it is, much of the book strays from its original premise, providing a rather heavy-handed indictment of the human race and our environmental legacy. While much of this information is interesting and arguably necessary to create a case for the future without us, too much time is spent on the past and too little on the future.

All in all, this is a well researched book. My interest level, as I read the book, had a tendency to ebb and flow. At times the book is fascinating, but the balance of it ranges from 'moderately interesting' to 'tedious & preachy'. The World Without Us is a sobering look at the impact we've had on the planet and a reminder that, despite how destructive we've been, how insignificant we actually are.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter, but be aware; the advertised premise of the book is a little misleading. Only a small portion of this book is actually spent speculating about the future.

I've barely started reading this - impressive that it is such an engaging thought experiment that History Channel jumped on it.

I worked Aerospace projects - Low Earth Orbit satellites will drop off "soon" - the GPS birds are about 10,000 miles up and will be around for "awhile." Tens of thousands of years.

The geosynchronous (correctly if only-occasionally titled "Clarke Orbit" birds - he died recently and deserves full credit) will last millions of years - they are far above earth gravity and have negligible drag. There are higher-orbit defense birds that will last far longer. Weird thought that our progeny get to an earth-like planet god-knows-when and finds a bunch of radiation-ravaged lumps of "metal" orbiting the planet as their first introduction to what was.

Still curious to see if the author wrote about some of the intentionally created man-made bastions: the Norwegion seed bin, multi-language nuclear waste dump warning signs, etc.

A well researched and written look at the global footprint humans are making on the world. A vivid account of human pressures on the environment and what the implications are for the future. Weisman is not just a prophet of doom but paints a stark picture of the future.

While fascinating and well written, "The World Without Us" has a bait-and-switch feel to it as if you had been promised an action-packed adventure movie and instead found yourself sitting though a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth."

This is unfortunate as the small parts of the book dedicated to discussing the purported subject matter (what would happen were the human race to suddenly vanish) are nothing short of fascinating, from flooding subway tunnels to nuclear meltdowns to refinery disasters to the longevity of ceramics and plastics.

In fact, the book wisely starts with an engaging description of the process by which nature would retake the city of New York (perhaps the better to lure in book store browsers who are unlikely to go beyond the first few pages). However, the chapters that follow seem more like a lengthy indictment of the human race for various crimes against nature. And so before we can read about what might happen to song birds in our absence, we must first read about the many ways in which our presence has decimated song bird populations. (Who knew our penchant for windows was a form of avian genocide?)

While such background information is surely useful, it simply crowds out most everything else. As such, it suffers from the unavoidable tedium of any one-sided argument. The overall effect is made worse when the author describes land as being "expropriated" from farmers for development rather than merely being "sold." And there are no real estate agents to be found, only "real estate mongers" and humans don't just use energy, they are "energy drunk," and so on.

It still merits two stars from me, partly for the portions of the book that deliver on the title, and partly because the author's discussion of humankind's numerous depredations upon nature is worthwhile and sobering. However, like many others here, I remain disappointed that the author spent more time on the latter than the former (a very unfortunate deception), and further, given that approach, he could not find the space to include more than a few throwaway lines on the many positive contributions our species has made to this planet.

If humans were to go extinct in the next few years, it's safe to say that mother nature will fully recover. There are some things she will likely not be able to fix, nuclear waste being top of the list, but evolution will help her to take care of a lot of the other problems humans have created, at least according to "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman.

Luckily Weisman didn't just focus on one city and tell us how it would be destroyed and returned to its natural state, which was what I feared when I began reading the book. The first chapter focuses on New York City, the penultimate city to most Americans, but he quickly moves on to other things. Weisman talks to bridge workers to find out how quickly bridges would corrode and crumble depending on climate. He also looks into how buildings deteriorate, how roads crack and give way to trees and plants, and how other species would be effected by the loss of humans.

The chapters about deterioration of man-made buildings were difficult for me to read as I don't have a very scientific mind. I had to really focus on each paragraph to be sure I was really understanding, which made this a long book for me. I found the chapters about case studies (Chernobyl, the DMZ between the Koreas, etc.), and those about other species, to be the most fascinating. As a crazy environmentalist I find myself always thinking everything would be better off without humans, but this just isn't the case. There are several species that would likely become extinct themselves as a result of human extinction, many of those being the animals we have painstakingly domesticated and bred for our own use.

Other chapters that took turns I didn't expect were the chapter on war, in which Weisman argues that war is actually good for the environment despite horrible examples of it causing destruction, and the section about birds, in which we learn that birds are the least effected by humans because they don't have to spend all their time on Earth with us but they are still killed in the hundreds each year because of human interaction.

Overall, I found this book to be really interesting and I appreciated the illustrations that helped to explain some of the more difficult issues and managed to break up the dense text for me. The book is well researched and well written, giving a very full picture of what would happen if humans disappeared without destroying the Earth in the process.

It's more than a simple thought experiment or a what-if. In formulating his eponymous scenario, Weisman consulted with a pageant of experts with titles such as architectural engineer, atmospheric physicist, subway worker, archaeologist, marine researcher, microbiologist, ethnobotanist, nuclear safety engineer, coral reef specialist, Smithsonian extinction expert, planetary scientist, ichthyologist, limnologist, an actual rocket scientist, and...Sufi master (to name a very few). His research leads us from the Serengeti to the Northern Territories, the Korean demilitarized zone, the Texas petrochemical complex, the Vienna Institute of Demography, and the site of Chernobyl. It's disturbing on one level, liberating on another, to think about what would happen to our stuff on a different time scale than we usually think about: our houses, our steel bridges, our embalmed and buried dead. Would continental wildlife venture across the Chunnel to re-colonize Britain by traversing a 35-mile dark underground passage? There are surprises, such as what might happen to domesticated cats and dogs, the statue of liberty, our music, and to cockroaches. (Not what you think). But the book explores the philosophical besides just the technical questions, and without judgment. You might guess that the book could end up as a condemnation of the species in question based on the ruination of garbage, ozone-depleting coolants, coal mining where entire tops of mountain in Appalachia are blasted away, soil depletion, the massive scale of destruction of birds by cell phone towers, of heavy metals, PCBs, disrupted ecosystems, and the billions of tons of plastic that swirl trapped in the currents of the Horse Latitudes. But Weisman succeeds in creating a balanced essay anyway, also noting the likely fates of our monuments, such as the Panama Canal, Mount Rushmore, the New York City Subway system, and symbols of our humanity: the messaging system designed by semiotics experts to warn away would-be future archeologists from opening the WIPP landfills that store nuclear waste, and the copper engravings launched into space on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft designed to convey the essence of human civilization within a series of images and musical recordings. What does it mean, our hopes to leave some lasting trace of who we are?
The author concludes with a few thoughts on population growth, although I can imagine a next book on that subject alone, and maybe the book wanted to be about that all along. Weisman has done a great service to invite certain ideas into mainstream discourse. This book belongs on your required reading list.

Well thought out ideas. Gives an amazing, although somewhat dismal, picture of what humans are doing to the world. This book shows just how much of a drastic influence we have over the Earth by describing what would happen to all of our "controlled" creations should we suddenly not be here to upkeep them. It is definitely rousing a call for us to find ways to solve our destructive habits before it is too late. Should we really just disappear or should we learn to respect our fragile ecosystems? In short, this was an excellent and thought provoking piece of literature.

The World Without Us is a well written and imaginative book. It is based on a thought experiment about what would happen to the world if humans were to suddenly disappear in some sort of magical way. This is obviously a very contrived notion, however Alan Weisman makes it work well. The reader learns a lot about how humans have effected our world by following this line of thought.

Weisman describes how long various human creations would last if we stopped maintaining them. How long would bridges stand, how long till subways and tunnels flood or collapse? When would the pollutants we have created disappear? How long would it take for our cities to disappear from the landscape and how would that happen? He has a particularly fascinating description of how our nuclear power plants would fare without us. The discussion of what would happen to our oil refineries with no one to maintain them is interesting and disconcerting.

The title is misleading in that the book is only partially about the world without us, but about what we have done to the world. This leads to descriptions of the current state of our world, and how we got here. This is really the main point of the book, and is very well done and worth reading. The theme of the world with out humans leads to a valuable and novel perspective on the world, and especially on ourselves.

Fascinating, terrifying. I could only read 3 or 4 pages and then stop to think about it for a while. It took longer to read this relatively short book (2 weeks) than 7 page-turner 600-page novels. Which shows how much I think during reading one over the other. I will have my book club read this. They often dread my choices but like them in the end. Not preachy but certainly a scary book.

The TV shows and articles you read about this book will focus on cities left to decay. These subjects are in the book, but in terms of a preview of the book they are misleading.

The parts about decaying cities are actually less than a quarter of the book. Most of the book focuses on the environment at large and is intended to be a wake-up-call to our long term effects on life on earth.

That being said the book is for the most part very good, drags here and there, becomes borderline stereotype "treehugger" in others. A great deal of it is stuck firmly around the now, rather than the future. When it does cover the future, too much time is spent in the first few thousand years and not enough time on the rest of the future. What happens to cities as the continents drift? In -millions- of years, how much evidence will be left of us? These questions are left untouched.

A good read, but don't buy into the hype that this is all about decaying cities. It isn't. It's a decent book about our effect on our environment.

Tough read but a good one. Probably easier for science-types than lay-people (or English majors like me). Some of the chemistry and botany went straight over my head. But, i loved the message the book conveys: yes, we've done damage, but chances are it's not irrevocable--certainly not when viewed in "geologic" time. Until then (until AD 5 million), it's important to understand that we can effect change. The suggestion that i liked the most but which only covered a few sentences was the idea that the human race could undertake a population reduction. By 2100 we could be half the size we are now and our descendants would inherit all our knowledge but far fewer troubles.

This book is billed on the front cover as being a "thought experiment" and many reviewers corroborate that allegation, yet I found that not to be the case. Most chapters are not anything more than a catalog of how humans have interfered, irrevocably, in many instances, with nature and fragile ecosystems, followed by a couple of short paragraphs from the author saying whether or not he thinks the damage would continue once we're gone. There really is not that much thought experiment, most of it is either history or investigative journalism.

That being said, it is an interesting book that will cause the reader to pause and think about the detrimental effect we are having on the planet in ways that are not immediately clear to most people. The book is genuinely informative and at times entertaining. Just do not believe the hyped up nonsense portraying this book to be something that it is not.

This is one of those books that takes a while to sink in, bit by bit. At first its premise is interesting, but after a few days it becomes something deeper. It sticks with you, at the grocery store counting up how many plastic items you bought, or when the new reports that the nuclear power plant shut down that day. You appreciate how fragile our planet is, and what a mess we've made of things, historically and more recently.

This audio book is one I will listen to over and over again. There is so much information in the ten cds. I have already listened to the whole book twice during my daily hour commute to work. He invested so much time and research into this book and it really shows! I definitely recommend this audio book to anyone who enjoys being intellectually stimulated!

The World Without Us (TWWU) started off with a bang. The author went into some quite interesting facts about human infrastructure and how it would decay and why it would decay without humans around. Well after he wrote this the book started to decay. You see TWWU is an excellent book if it were retitled "A Snap of the Planet Earth" The author spends way too much time talking about our environmental situation now and does not speculate, very much, of the environment of tomorrow. He mentions nothing about the atmosphere, for example, which, forgive my pun, is the hottest environmental topic there is. Strange don't you think? The author was too busy giving us an ecology lesson and making small jabs at corporate America, rather than telling us what the planet would be if we were not there. Again it's a fairly entertaining ecology book but as far it telling us what the world would be like without us, we are left to watch about this topic on the Discovery Channel to find out what the world would be, if we no longer exsisted.

I really didn't want to like this book. What I was expecting and looking for was the scientific breakdown of mans mark on the world, a breakdown so to speak along the lines of `Earth Abides' or `I am Legend' showing how long it would take before mans imprint would disappear. Well that's what I got alright, but instead of the lefty-green rant I was afraid of, I got a worse horror story than either of the above-mentioned books. It details how not how long it would take for mans imprint to disappear, but how long it would take for the surface of the planet to recover from our wanton destructiveness leaving me quite sombre and introspective by the time I'd finished. I view the whole Gaia concept with a degree of distrust, veering as it does between wishful thinking and anthropomorphic paganism, but what I do believe in is a responsible stewardship of your resources. This book displays with a mass of evidence how mankind has fallen short of that; the continued existence of plastics in the environment long after mankind has gone is every bit as frightening as the prospect of nuclear poisoning. (The North Pacific Gyre is calculated to contain 18 million tons of plastic refuse and that is just the visible refuse on the surface). Not the romantic vista of genteelly crumbling churches and urban landscapes, but an environmental paean to nature and an effective indictment of our stewardship.

What if humans were extinct? Everything that we have created would return to the earth and vegetation and fauna would survive and flourish. this is the main premise to the book. I like it's optimism that the earth can overcome all that we have done to it. The end with the sun burning us all out will probably happen anyway as nothing lasts forever. This is a very interesting read. This is a different genre from my usual reading.

In this fascinating book, award-winning journalist Alan Weisman ruminates on what the world would be like without humans. The subjects meander from what would happen to an uninhabited house, to what would happen to an uninhabited city, to how evolution was different in the presence of early humans, to what happened in Cyprus during its recent war.

That's right in a certain sense there is no clear, overarching theme to this book, except perhaps how man has polluted and damaged his environment. But, regardless of what Mr. Weisman is talking about, he does succeed on making it so very interesting. I really enjoyed his discussion of how the invading Asians (now incongruously known as Native-Americans) annihilated an uncounted and uncountable number of species, of what has happened along the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, of what goofy things people do with the bodies of their loved-ones after death, of what goofy people who want to extinguish the entire human race, of what has happened at Chernobyl, and what is happening to our coral reefs worldwide.

So, I take away a point for the rambling nature of the book, but in spite of that, I think that this is an excellent and thoroughly engrossing book. If you really want to read a book that is unlike anything else you have ever read, then read The World Without Us. I give it my highest recommendations!

"The World Without Us" should be read by all students of natural history, as well as those interested in politics. Fascinating to become aware of the impact Homo sapiens has had on this planet, and what could happen if we were to suddenly vanish. Extremely well-researched, totally believable, and a highly-recommended read.

First, I will state, unequivocally, that I enjoyed this book, and I recommend that you (reading this review) read it. It's tone is not especially scientific; rather, it reads like an extended article of the type that one might find in the pages of the New Yorker, Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, or Doctor Who Monthly.
I suppose my trouble with this book is that I could not quite wrap my head around the idea of looking at the world without being in the world. For example, how could I enjoy the falcons nesting in NYC unless I was in NYC, which, according to this book says, I will not be. I was glad to know that my two cats will survive, but was sad to hear that dogs are in trouble, since they are so dependent on humans. I don't have a dog, so, emotionally, I was able to handle this. Instead of going extinct, what I would like to do, is do some long-distance space-travel, let the earth recover a bit, and then come back. Hopefully, whatever new life forms evolve in the interim won't be hostile to humans.

This is a beautifully written work of non-fiction that imagines, with humility and wonder, what would happen to the world if all human beings disappeared. The chapters are divided up into distinct areas of examination: what would happen to art, what would happen to agriculture, what would happen to cities. For me, the most moving discussion was about the Voyager spacecrafts, both of which carry a disk of images and sounds that are intended to relay the essence of what it means to be a human being living on earth--or, more accurately, what it MEANT to be a human being living on earth. As the author explains, these spacecrafts likely won't be intercepted for millions of years, at which point we will no longer exist. The individuals who put this complex message together essentially wrote an elegy for humanity, a rememberance of all that we are and all that we were. Beautifully written, with profound observations about our impact on the planet, as well as our transience.

A truly original book on the hypothesis of what the world would be like if the human race suddenly vanished. We may be masters of the world, but when we are gone, masters of nothing. The real cartakers of this world, flora and animals, will resume their synergistic existence.

an interesting concept - what will physically happen to the planet when humans are gone? what will endure? what will crumble? what will thrive? some fascinating things, yet troubling to see how much damage the human race causes to everything else that lives on the planet. well researched, although it gets a little over technical at times. not for the faint of heart!

"The World Without Us" describes what would happen to the world, the wilderness, the farms, the cities, the infrastructure, and the ecosystems if homo sapiens just disappeared. It doesn't postulate how humans disappear, because that's not the point; the author wanted to delve into our impact on the earth, for good or bad, depending on the leftover benefactors, i.e.: cats, dogs, cattle, etc. In some cases, there is scientific speculation to foretell outcomes, but in others he provides real world examples, such as a Cyprus village abandoned for years.

What struck me was that this does not end with a thank-goodness-they're-gone coda, but every outcome is fairly well thought out. While there was a bit I already knew, there was a lot more that I learned in reading this book- such as the horse latitudes being the last resting place for the trash of the Pacific, the sheer plenitudes of polymers in the oceans, as well as theories of the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna.

The only problem I have with the book is that the continuity is lacking, but otherwise I enjoyed it.

Out of curiosity, I perused a lot of the reviews in here, knowing what I would find. If you're not already aware of the magnitude of the damage we do to the planet, this this will be like a bucket of cold water to you, either that or you'll be in denial and give it a low-rating saying the author hates people. These are pretty much end times, for the climate, for pollution, for agriculture. When I say that, I don't mean literally that we all will die, but we have to change our lifestyles if we want homo sapiens to survive.

This is an all-around excellent book. It is hard to find better writing on this topic, however, Weisman pointedly forgets how humans' brains, and our increasing distance from nature and enslavement of the biosphere, is in the "way" of things- I mean, everything is natural...extinction, non-extinction- everything always changes. Describing what has been and what may be could have been less alarmist and more embracing.