The World Without Us

Description

With a new afterword from the author, this worldwide bestseller answers the ultimate question- what happens to the Earth when human beings disappear? Revised Edition with New Afterword from the Author Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Over 3 million copies sold in 35 Languages "On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go." What if mankind disappeared right now, forever... what would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be? Speaking to experts in fields as diverse as oil production and ecology, and visiting the places that have escaped recent human activity to discover how they have adapted to life without us, Alan Weisman paints an intriguing picture of the future of Earth. Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future.

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist, his 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.

Compelling ... jammed packed with fascinating "what ifs" * Guardian * A powerful vision of a possible future for the earth * Sunday Times * A fascinating nonfiction eco-thriller * The New York Times Book Review * Drawing from hundreds of interviews with engineers, scientists and archaeologists, it unfolds like a thriller -- Cal Flyn * Guardian Best Books about the Post-Human Earth * One of the grandest thought experiments of our time, a tremendous feat of imaginative reporting! * Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy * Flesh-creepingly good fun . . . Food for thought * Independent * A wonderful idea... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book... Terrific * Evening Standard * The imaginative power of The World Without Us is compulsive and nearly hypnotic--make sure you have time to be kidnapped into Alan Weisman's alternative world before you sit down with the book, because you won't soon return. This is a text that has a chance to change people, and so make a real difference for the planet * Charles Wohlforth, author of L.A. Times Book Prize-winning The Whale and the Supercomputer * An exacting account of the processes by which things fall apart. The scope is breathtaking...the clarity and lyricism of the writing itself left me with repeated gasps of recognition about the human condition. I believe it will be a classic * Dennis Covington, author of National Book Award finalist Salvation on Sand Mountain * The book boasts an amazingly imaginative conceit that manages to tap into underlying fears and subtly inspire us to consider our interaction with the planet * The Washington Post * Alan Weisman offers us a sketch of where we stand as a species that is both illuminating and terrifying. His tone is conversational and his affection for both Earth and humanity transparent * Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams * Fascinating, mordant, deeply intelligent, and beautifully written, The World Without Us depicts the spectacle of humanity's impact on the planet Earth in tragically poignant terms that go far beyond the dry dictates of science. This is a very important book for a species playing games with its own destiny * James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency * Marvellous...the first environmentalist not to preach, but to present us with the sober, humbling facts ... so intricate is his web of evidence, so seductive his argument, that he doesn't need to preach ... The effect of The World Without Us is a little like reading Pliny the Elder's history of the world: a sense of nature as the caster of spells and marvels, but with ourselves not as wide-eyed observers, nor as villains somehow separate from nature, but simply as resourceful and blundering * Daily Telegraph * This is not a book about the end of the world but about an imagined beginning ...The results of this huge thought-experiment are both fascinating and surprising. Fascinating for what they tell us about the impermanence of the works of man, and surprising for the simple reason that it soon becomes clear that our world would carry on regardless, indifferent to our demise * Daily Mail * Weisman's 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 * New York Times * Engrossing * New York Magazine * An idea that is so lateral and clever, so powerfully evocative and masterfully executed that the only appropriate response is fervent envy * New Statesman * A wonderful idea ... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book * Scotsman * Fascinating, absorbing * Good Book Guide * A quick, absorbing read - a summer beach book with brains * Bloomberg * If you can stomach only one end-of-the world-as-we-know it story this summer, none is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman's The World Without Us * The Boston Globe *