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A review by crowinator
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
5.0
Posted to my Livejournal in March 2008:
I am not a big reader of nonfiction. I stay away from the factual in favor of the fanciful -- why read books that make me feel like I'm in school again, cramming for a test in a subject I'm not that interested in?
This book is different. Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is one of the most important books I have ever read. It's highly readable, intelligent, influential, terrifying, poignant, and hopeful.
Weisman’s premise is simple: if humans were to disappear en masse, what would happen to Earth? More specifically, what would happen to what we leave behind on Earth? In readable and engaging prose, Weisman shows how nature would reclaim our homes, our cities, and our farms, and how long it would take. He also goes beyond such everyday places (everyday for an American audience), to examine megafauna in Africa, an old growth forest between Poland and Belarus, underground cities in Turkey, abandoned hotels in Cyprus, the DMZ in Korea, the Kingman Reef in the Pacific Ocean, even satellites in outer space.
As Weisman travels the globe, imagining a future without us, he uncovers the disturbing reality of what we’ve done in the past and what we’re doing right now. For example, we learn about the indelible nature of plastics, and what they do to our oceans; how we contain nuclear waste, chemicals, and dangerous gases, and why the current solutions are only temporary ones; and the long-lasting effects of our ever-increasing population on a finite world. While this book shows nature’s seemingly endless capacity to self-heal, it also makes clear just how much we have already changed the world, permanently.
Though this book offers a sobering picture of our effects on the world, it is not one without hope. Weisman stresses nature’s ability to adapt, survive, sometimes even flourish, in the face of ecological and environmental disasters. Weisman leads us toward asking the big questions, the questions we need to answer if we are to survive as a species on this planet.
How can we reverse the damage we’ve done? How can we learn, as a global society, to live in balance with nature? Are we too late? And if we do die out, what will our legacy be?
I am not a big reader of nonfiction. I stay away from the factual in favor of the fanciful -- why read books that make me feel like I'm in school again, cramming for a test in a subject I'm not that interested in?
This book is different. Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is one of the most important books I have ever read. It's highly readable, intelligent, influential, terrifying, poignant, and hopeful.
Weisman’s premise is simple: if humans were to disappear en masse, what would happen to Earth? More specifically, what would happen to what we leave behind on Earth? In readable and engaging prose, Weisman shows how nature would reclaim our homes, our cities, and our farms, and how long it would take. He also goes beyond such everyday places (everyday for an American audience), to examine megafauna in Africa, an old growth forest between Poland and Belarus, underground cities in Turkey, abandoned hotels in Cyprus, the DMZ in Korea, the Kingman Reef in the Pacific Ocean, even satellites in outer space.
As Weisman travels the globe, imagining a future without us, he uncovers the disturbing reality of what we’ve done in the past and what we’re doing right now. For example, we learn about the indelible nature of plastics, and what they do to our oceans; how we contain nuclear waste, chemicals, and dangerous gases, and why the current solutions are only temporary ones; and the long-lasting effects of our ever-increasing population on a finite world. While this book shows nature’s seemingly endless capacity to self-heal, it also makes clear just how much we have already changed the world, permanently.
Though this book offers a sobering picture of our effects on the world, it is not one without hope. Weisman stresses nature’s ability to adapt, survive, sometimes even flourish, in the face of ecological and environmental disasters. Weisman leads us toward asking the big questions, the questions we need to answer if we are to survive as a species on this planet.
How can we reverse the damage we’ve done? How can we learn, as a global society, to live in balance with nature? Are we too late? And if we do die out, what will our legacy be?