The World Without Us
Encyclopedia
The World Without Us is a non-fiction
book about what would happen to the natural
and built environment
if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman
and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books
. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover
article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment
, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze
statues, plastics, and Mount Rushmore
would be among the longest lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.
The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list
and #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle
Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on Time
and Entertainment Weekly
's of 2007.
20th Century Fox
has purchased the rights to the book with the intent of creating a motion picture.
novels for decades. Post-apocalyptic literature in general had often tried to imagine the fate of civilization and its artifacts after the end of humanity. Indeed, an extremely popular 1949 novel, Earth Abides
, portrayed the breakdown of urban systems and structures after a pandemic, through the eyes of a survivor, who muses at the end of the first chapter: "What would happen to the world and its creatures without man? That he was left to see."
The World Without Us applies a more ecological view to that old story. Before writing it, the author, Alan Weisman
, had written four books, including, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, in 1998, about the eco-village of Gaviotas
in Colombia; and An Echo In My Blood, in 1999, about his family's history immigrating from Ukraine
to the United States. He has worked as an international journalist for American magazines and newspapers, and at the time of writing the book was an Associate Professor of Journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona
. The position required him to teach only one class in the spring semester, and he was free to travel and conduct research the rest of the year.
The idea for The World Without Us was suggested to Weisman in 2004 by Josie Glausiusz, an editor at Discover
. She had pondered the idea for several years and asked Weisman to write a feature on the subject after she re-read "Journey through a Doomed Land", an article he published in 1994 in Harper's Magazine
about the state of Chernobyl
eight years after abandonment. His Discover article, "Earth Without People", published in the February 2005 issue and re-printed in The Best American Science Writing 2006 anthology, describes how nature has thrived in the abandoned Korean Demilitarized Zone
and how nature would overwhelm the built environment
of New York City
. Using interviews with paleoecologists
, the article speculates that megafauna
would return and that forest cover, like the Białowieża Forest, would spread over Europe and the eastern United States
. The article raises the prospect of failing power plants, chemical plants, dams, and petroleum tanks.
To expand this into a book, Weisman’s agent found an editor and publisher at St. Martin's Press
. Among the 23 page bibliography are two articles he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Magazine
("Naked Planet" on persistent organic pollutants, and "The Real Indiana Jones" on the Mayan civilization) and one published in the Condé Nast Traveler
("Diamond in the Wild" on diamond mining), as well as Discovers "Earth Without People". Additional research saw Weisman travel to England, Cyprus, Turkey, Panama, and Kenya. Interviews with academics quoted in the book include biologist E. O. Wilson
on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, archaeologist William Rathje
on plastics in garbage, forest botanist Oliver Rackham
on vegetative cover across Britain, anthropologist Arthur Demarest
on the crash of Mayan civilization
, paleobiologist Douglas Erwin
on evolution, and philosopher Nick Bostrom
on Transhumanism
.
, coda
, bibliography
and index
. Each chapter deals with a new topic, such as the potential fates of plastics, petroleum infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and artworks. It is written from the point of view of a science journalist with explanations and testimonies backing his predictions. There is no unifying narrative, cohesive single-chapter overview, or thesis.
Weisman's thought experiment pursues two themes: how nature would react to the disappearance of humans and what legacy humans would leave behind. To foresee how other life could continue without humans, Weisman reports from areas where the natural environment exists with little human intervention, like the Białowieża Forest, the Kingman Reef
, and the Palmyra Atoll
. He interviews biologist E. O. Wilson
and visits with members of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement
at the Korean Demilitarized Zone
where few humans have penetrated since 1953. He tries to conceive how life may evolve by describing the past evolution of pre-historic plants and animals, but notes Douglas Erwin's warning that "we can't predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors". Several chapters are dedicated to megafauna
, which Weisman predicts would proliferate. He profiles soil samples from the past 200 years and extrapolates concentrations of heavy metals and foreign substances into a future without industrial inputs. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and implications for climatic change are likewise examined.
With material from previous articles, Weisman uses the fate of the Mayan civilization to illustrate the possibility of an entrenched society vanishing and how the natural environment quickly conceals evidence. To demonstrate how vegetation could compromise human built infrastructure, Weisman interviewed hydrologists and employees at the Panama Canal
, where constant maintenance is required to keep the jungle vegetation and silt away from the dams. To illustrate abandoned cities succumbing to nature, Weisman reports from Chernobyl, Ukraine
(abandoned in 1986) and Varosha, Cyprus
(abandoned in 1974). Weisman finds that their structures crumble as weather does unrepaired damage and other life forms create new habitats. In Turkey, Weisman contrasts the construction practices of the rapidly growing Istanbul
, as typical for large cities in less developed countries, with the underground cities in Cappadocia
. Due to a large demand for housing in Istanbul much of it was developed quickly with whatever material was available and could collapse in a major earthquake or other natural disaster. Cappadocian underground cities were built thousands of years ago out of volcanic tuff
, and are likely to survive for centuries to come.
Weisman uses New York City
as a model to outline how an unmaintained urban area would deconstruct. He explains that sewers would clog, underground streams would flood subway corridors, and soils under roads would erode and cave in. From interviews with members of the Wildlife Conservation Society
and the New York Botanical Gardens Weisman predicts that native vegetation would return, spreading from parks and out-surviving invasive species. Without humans to provide food and warmth, rats and cockroaches would die off.
Weisman explains that a common house would begin to fall apart as water eventually leaks into the roof around the flashings, erodes the wood and rusts the nails, leading to sagging walls and eventual collapse. After 500 years all that would be left would be aluminum dishwasher parts, stainless steel cookware, and plastic handles. The longest-lasting evidence on Earth of a human presence would be radioactive materials, ceramics, bronze statues, and Mount Rushmore. In space, the Pioneer plaque
s, the Voyager Golden Record
, and radio waves would outlast the Earth itself.
Breaking from the theme of the natural environment after humans, Weisman considers what could lead to the sudden, complete demise of humans
without serious damage to the built and natural environment. That scenario, he concludes, is extremely unlikely. He also considers transhumanism
, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
, the Church of Euthanasia
and John A. Leslie
's The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction. Weisman concludes the book considering a new version of the one-child policy
. While he admits it is a "draconian measure", he states, "The bottom line is that any species that overstretches its resource base suffers a population crash. Limiting our reproduction would be damn hard, but limiting our consumptive instincts may be even harder." He responded to criticism of this saying "I knew in advance that I would touch some people's sensitive spots by bringing up the population issue, but I did so because it's been missing too long from the discussion of how we must deal with the situation our economic and demographic growth have driven us too (sic)".
The book was first published on July 10, 2007, as a hardback in the United States by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books
, in United Kingdom by Virgin Books
and in Canada by HarperCollins
. The paperback was released in July 2008. It has been translated and published in France by Groupe Flammarion as Homo disparitus, in Germany by Piper as Die Welt ohne uns, in Portugal by Estrela Polar as O Mundo Sem Nós, in Italy by Einaudi as Il mondo senza di noi, in Poland by CKA as Świat bez nas, and in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing as Jinrui ga kieta sekai.
Pete Garceau designed the cover art for the American release, which one critic said was "a thick layer of sugar-coated sweetness in an effort to not alarm potential readers. 'Yes, I am a book about the environment. But I'm harmless! No, really!' " The Canadian version, designed by Ellen Cipriano, is similar to the American version but with a photo illustration rather than the disarming cartoon illustration. Cover art for the international releases contrast the natural environment with a decaying built environment. Adam Grupper voiced the ten hour long, unabridged English language audiobook which was published by Macmillan Audio
and BBC Audiobooks
, and released simultaneously with the hardcover book. AudioFile
gave the audio presentation its Earphones Award, called Grupper's reading sincere and balanced, and wrote, "Never veering into sensationalism, always objective and phlegmatic, Grupper takes what could be a depressing topic and makes it a book you just can't stop listening to".
and Brussels
. Weisman did television interviews on The Daily Show
and The Today Show and radio interviews on Weekend Edition
, Talk of the Nation
, The Diane Rehm Show
, Living on Earth
, Marketplace
, and As It Happens
. Meanwhile, the book debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list
for non-fiction hardcovers at #10 on July 29 and spent nine weeks in the top ten, peaking at #6 on August 12 and September 9. In the Canadian market, it spent 10 weeks on The Globe and Mail
s non-fiction best seller list, peaking at #3 on August 11. The book reached #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle
Best-Sellers list for non-fiction on September 23 and spent 11 weeks on the USA Today
' s Top 150 Best-Selling Books, peaking at #48. Reviewers at the Library Journal
recommended the book for all environmental collections and the audiobook for most public and academic library audiobook collections. The book ranked #1 on Time
and Entertainment Weekly
's top of 2007 and was listed in the Hudson Booksellers'
"Best Books published in 2007". In the Amazon.com
"Best Books of 2007"
, it placed #4 overall in the United States and #1 in the non-fiction category in Canada.
The writing style was positively received as being vivid and well-written, sometimes grim, but with appropriate language. Even an overall negative review by Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post
remarked the writing was "always lucid, sometimes elegant". In The New York Times Book Review
Jennifer Schuessler said Weisman has a "flirtation with religious language, his occasionally portentous impassivity giving way to the familiar rhetoric of eco-hellfire". Janet Maslin
of The New York Times
found the writing had "an arid, plain, what-if style" while being "strangely uniform in tone". On the reporting techniques, Kamiya wrote that "[Weisman's] science reporting, at once lucid and full of wonder ... is the heart and soul of this book" and that it is "written as if by a compassionate and curious observer on another planet". The Plain Dealer book editor Karen Long said Weisman "uses the precise, unhurried language of a good science writer and shows a knack for unearthing unexpected sources and provocative facts".
Several critics found the lack of an anthropomorphic point of view hurt the book's relevance. Robert Braile in The Boston Globe
wrote that it has "no real context ... no rationale for probing this fantasy other than [Weisman's] unsubstantiated premise that people find it fascinating". Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post
also questioned the premise: "Imagining the human footprint on a post-human planet might be fun for dormitory potheads who have already settled the questions of God's existence and Fergie's hotness, but it's not clear why the rest of us need this level of documentary evidence". On the other hand, Alanna Mitchell in the Globe and Mail review found relevance in the context of society's passiveness to resource depletion combined with an anthropomorphic vanity. She writes the "book [is] designed to help us find the how of survival by shaking us out of our passive dance with death".
The book's environmental focus was also criticized by some. Christopher Orlet of The American Spectator
wrote that it is "a prime example of the wrongheaded, extremist views of the Greens". Braile agrees that the book could be "an environmentalist's nightmare, possibly fueling the cheap shots taken at the green movement ... by critics who say environmentalists care more about nature than people". Environmentalist Alex Steffen
found the book presents nothing new, but that using the sudden and clean disappearance of humans provides a unique framework, although extremely unlikely and insensitive. Two critics who call the book a "Jeremiad
" ultimately gave it a positive review. The Guardian
says "we learn during the course of this book, to feel good about the disappearance of humanity from the Earth".
Other critics hailed the environmental perspective. Chauncey Mabe of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel calls the book "one of the most satisfying environmental books of recent memory, one devoid of self-righteousness, alarmism or tiresome doomsaying". Tom Spears of the CanWest News Service
concludes "it's more a portrait of ourselves, taken through an odd lens" and "[s]ometimes an obituary is the best biography".
but some commentators emphasize it may be better described as speculative fiction
. The World Without Us is grounded in environmental
and science journalism
. Like other environmental books, it discusses the impact that the human race has had on the planet. Weisman's thought experiment removes the judgments and sufferings of humans by focusing on a hypothetical post-human world. This approach to the genre, which "throw[s] the spotlight on the earth itself", was found to be creative and objective. There have been other books that address similar topics, such as Gregory Benford
's 1999 book Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. Science fiction
writers such as H. G. Wells
(The War of the Worlds
, 1898) and John Wyndham
(The Day of the Triffids
, 1951) had earlier touched upon the possible fate of cities and other man-made structures after the sudden removal of their creators. Similar parallels in the decay of civilization are detailed in 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction
novel
by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart
, Earth Abides
.
Addressing his approach, Weisman said that eliminating the human element eliminated the "fear factor" that people are doing something wrong or that they will die; it is meant to be read as a fantasy, according to the author. Josie Appleton of Spiked
related the book to "today’s romanticisation of nature" in that it linked "the decadence and detachment of a modern consumerist society" with an ignorance of the efforts required to produce products so easily disposed. Appleton also felt the book countered the "Nature knows best" notion by highlighting the randomness of natural forces.
Weisman's science journalism style uses interviews with academic and professional authorities to substantiate conclusions, while maintaining the "cool and dispassionate [tone]...of a scientific observer rather than an activist". Weisman said he purposely avoided the activist label: "Some of our finest science and nature writers only get read by people who already agree with them. It's nice to get some affirmation for whatever it is you believe is true, even if it's quite sobering, but I wanted to write something that people would read ... without minimizing the significance of what's going on, nor trivializing it, nor oversimplifying it." Richard Fortey
compares the book to the works of Jared Diamond
, Tim Flannery
and E.O. Wilson, and writes that The World Without Us "narrowly avoids engendering the gloom-and-doom ennui that tends to engulf the poor reader after reading a catalogue of human rapacity". Mark Lynas
in the New Statesman
noted that "whereas most environmental books sag under the weight of their accumulated bad news, The World Without Us seems refreshingly positive". Demonstrating the optimism on the grim subject matter Appleton quotes an ecologist from the book saying "if the planet can recover from the Permian, it can recover from the human".
There have been several TV specials relating to the same topic:
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book about what would happen to the natural
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
and built environment
Built environment
The term built environment refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to neighborhoods and cities that can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy networks.The built...
if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman
Alan Weisman
Alan H. Weisman is an American author, professor, and journalist.- Education and career :Weisman holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in literature from Northwestern University...
and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover
Discover (magazine)
Discover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...
article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
statues, plastics, and Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States...
would be among the longest lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.
The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
and #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
's of 2007.
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
has purchased the rights to the book with the intent of creating a motion picture.
Background
The idea of exploring the effects of the depopulating of the Earth is an old one, having been a regular trope in science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels for decades. Post-apocalyptic literature in general had often tried to imagine the fate of civilization and its artifacts after the end of humanity. Indeed, an extremely popular 1949 novel, Earth Abides
Earth Abides
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood "Ish" Williams, Emma, and the community they...
, portrayed the breakdown of urban systems and structures after a pandemic, through the eyes of a survivor, who muses at the end of the first chapter: "What would happen to the world and its creatures without man? That he was left to see."
The World Without Us applies a more ecological view to that old story. Before writing it, the author, Alan Weisman
Alan Weisman
Alan H. Weisman is an American author, professor, and journalist.- Education and career :Weisman holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in literature from Northwestern University...
, had written four books, including, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, in 1998, about the eco-village of Gaviotas
Gaviotas
Gaviotas is an ecovillage located in the llanos of the Colombian department of Vichada. It was founded in 1971 by Paolo Lugari who assembled a group of engineers and scientists in an attempt to create a mode of sustainable living in one of the least hospitable political and geographical climates in...
in Colombia; and An Echo In My Blood, in 1999, about his family's history immigrating from Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
to the United States. He has worked as an international journalist for American magazines and newspapers, and at the time of writing the book was an Associate Professor of Journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. The position required him to teach only one class in the spring semester, and he was free to travel and conduct research the rest of the year.
The idea for The World Without Us was suggested to Weisman in 2004 by Josie Glausiusz, an editor at Discover
Discover (magazine)
Discover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...
. She had pondered the idea for several years and asked Weisman to write a feature on the subject after she re-read "Journey through a Doomed Land", an article he published in 1994 in Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
about the state of Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
eight years after abandonment. His Discover article, "Earth Without People", published in the February 2005 issue and re-printed in The Best American Science Writing 2006 anthology, describes how nature has thrived in the abandoned Korean Demilitarized Zone
Korean Demilitarized Zone
The Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and...
and how nature would overwhelm the built environment
Built environment
The term built environment refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to neighborhoods and cities that can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy networks.The built...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Using interviews with paleoecologists
Paleoecology
Paleoecology uses data from fossils and subfossils to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. It involves the study of fossil organisms and their associated remains, including their life cycle, living interactions, natural environment, and manner of death and burial to reconstruct the...
, the article speculates that megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
would return and that forest cover, like the Białowieża Forest, would spread over Europe and the eastern United States
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
. The article raises the prospect of failing power plants, chemical plants, dams, and petroleum tanks.
To expand this into a book, Weisman’s agent found an editor and publisher at St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
. Among the 23 page bibliography are two articles he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Magazine
Los Angeles Times Magazine
The Los Angeles Times Magazine is a monthly magazine which supplements the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times newspaper on the first Sunday of the month...
("Naked Planet" on persistent organic pollutants, and "The Real Indiana Jones" on the Mayan civilization) and one published in the Condé Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler is a US magazine published by Condé Nast. It has its origins in a mailing sent out by the Diners Club club beginning in 1953, listing locations that would take the card. It began taking advertising in 1955. In order to attract more advertisers, it became a full-fledged magazine,...
("Diamond in the Wild" on diamond mining), as well as Discovers "Earth Without People". Additional research saw Weisman travel to England, Cyprus, Turkey, Panama, and Kenya. Interviews with academics quoted in the book include biologist E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, archaeologist William Rathje
William Rathje
William Laurens Rathje is an American archaeologist. He is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona, with a joint appointment with the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, and is consulting professor of anthropological sciences at Stanford University...
on plastics in garbage, forest botanist Oliver Rackham
Oliver Rackham
Oliver Rackham OBE is a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is also Keeper of theCollege Silver.An acknowledged authority on the British countryside, especially trees, woodlands and wood pasture, Rackham has written a number of well-known books, including The History of the...
on vegetative cover across Britain, anthropologist Arthur Demarest
Arthur Demarest
Arthur Andrew Demarest is an American anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his studies of the Maya civilization.-Career:Demarest, a Louisiana Cajun, studied Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology at Tulane University, where he graduated. In 1981 Demarest was granted his doctorate by...
on the crash of Mayan civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
, paleobiologist Douglas Erwin
Douglas Erwin
Douglas Erwin is a paleobiologist and Curator of Paleozoic Invertebrates at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.He has written two books: Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago in 2006, and The Great Paleozoic Crisis: Life and Death in the Permian in 1993....
on evolution, and philosopher Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
on Transhumanism
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
.
Synopsis
The book is divided into 19 chapters, with a preludePrologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
, coda
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
, bibliography
Bibliography
Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...
and index
Index (publishing)
An index is a list of words or phrases and associated pointers to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document...
. Each chapter deals with a new topic, such as the potential fates of plastics, petroleum infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and artworks. It is written from the point of view of a science journalist with explanations and testimonies backing his predictions. There is no unifying narrative, cohesive single-chapter overview, or thesis.
Weisman's thought experiment pursues two themes: how nature would react to the disappearance of humans and what legacy humans would leave behind. To foresee how other life could continue without humans, Weisman reports from areas where the natural environment exists with little human intervention, like the Białowieża Forest, the Kingman Reef
Kingman Reef
Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited triangular shaped reef, east-west and north-south, located in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly half way between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa at...
, and the Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government...
. He interviews biologist E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
and visits with members of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement
Korean Federation for Environmental Movement
The Korean Federation for Environmental Movement is a non-profit organization in South Korea that focuses on environmentalism.The group was founded in April 1993 as a federation of eight environmental groups, the largest being the Korean Anti-Pollution Movement Association...
at the Korean Demilitarized Zone
Korean Demilitarized Zone
The Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and...
where few humans have penetrated since 1953. He tries to conceive how life may evolve by describing the past evolution of pre-historic plants and animals, but notes Douglas Erwin's warning that "we can't predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors". Several chapters are dedicated to megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
, which Weisman predicts would proliferate. He profiles soil samples from the past 200 years and extrapolates concentrations of heavy metals and foreign substances into a future without industrial inputs. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and implications for climatic change are likewise examined.
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, where constant maintenance is required to keep the jungle vegetation and silt away from the dams. To illustrate abandoned cities succumbing to nature, Weisman reports from Chernobyl, Ukraine
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
(abandoned in 1986) and Varosha, Cyprus
Varosha (Famagusta)
Varosha is a quarter in the Cypriot city of Famagusta. It is located within Northern Cyprus. Prior to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, it was the modern tourist area of Famagusta. Its inhabitants fled during the invasion, and it has remained abandoned ever since.-History:In the 1970s,...
(abandoned in 1974). Weisman finds that their structures crumble as weather does unrepaired damage and other life forms create new habitats. In Turkey, Weisman contrasts the construction practices of the rapidly growing Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, as typical for large cities in less developed countries, with the underground cities in Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
. Due to a large demand for housing in Istanbul much of it was developed quickly with whatever material was available and could collapse in a major earthquake or other natural disaster. Cappadocian underground cities were built thousands of years ago out of volcanic tuff
Tuff
Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...
, and are likely to survive for centuries to come.
Weisman uses New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
as a model to outline how an unmaintained urban area would deconstruct. He explains that sewers would clog, underground streams would flood subway corridors, and soils under roads would erode and cave in. From interviews with members of the Wildlife Conservation Society
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society based at the Bronx Zoo was founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society and currently manages some of wild places around the world, with over 500 field conservation projects in 60 countries, and 200 scientists on staff...
and the New York Botanical Gardens Weisman predicts that native vegetation would return, spreading from parks and out-surviving invasive species. Without humans to provide food and warmth, rats and cockroaches would die off.
Pioneer plaque
The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminium plaques which were placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either Pioneer 10 or 11 are intercepted by extraterrestrial life...
s, the Voyager Golden Record
Voyager Golden Record
The Voyager Golden Records are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for...
, and radio waves would outlast the Earth itself.
Breaking from the theme of the natural environment after humans, Weisman considers what could lead to the sudden, complete demise of humans
Human extinction
Human extinction is the end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The scope of this article is existential risks. Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which are capable of some kind of basic survival in...
without serious damage to the built and natural environment. That scenario, he concludes, is extremely unlikely. He also considers transhumanism
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT , is a movement which calls for the voluntary gradual self-extinction of the human species through abstaining from reproduction. VHEMT's motto is "May we live long and die out."...
, the Church of Euthanasia
Church of Euthanasia
The Church of Euthanasia , is a political organization started by the Reverend Chris Korda in the Boston, Massachusetts area of the United States....
and John A. Leslie
John A. Leslie
John Andrew Leslie is a Canadian philosopher. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, earning his B.A. in English Literature in 1962 and his M.Litt. in Classics in 1968...
's The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction. Weisman concludes the book considering a new version of the one-child policy
One-child policy
The one-child policy refers to the one-child limitation applying to a minority of families in the population control policy of the People's Republic of China . The Chinese government refers to it under the official translation of family planning policy...
. While he admits it is a "draconian measure", he states, "The bottom line is that any species that overstretches its resource base suffers a population crash. Limiting our reproduction would be damn hard, but limiting our consumptive instincts may be even harder." He responded to criticism of this saying "I knew in advance that I would touch some people's sensitive spots by bringing up the population issue, but I did so because it's been missing too long from the discussion of how we must deal with the situation our economic and demographic growth have driven us too (sic)".
Publication
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
, in United Kingdom by Virgin Books
Virgin Books
Virgin Books is a United Kingdom book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Enterprises, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company.-History:...
and in Canada by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
. The paperback was released in July 2008. It has been translated and published in France by Groupe Flammarion as Homo disparitus, in Germany by Piper as Die Welt ohne uns, in Portugal by Estrela Polar as O Mundo Sem Nós, in Italy by Einaudi as Il mondo senza di noi, in Poland by CKA as Świat bez nas, and in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing as Jinrui ga kieta sekai.
Pete Garceau designed the cover art for the American release, which one critic said was "a thick layer of sugar-coated sweetness in an effort to not alarm potential readers. 'Yes, I am a book about the environment. But I'm harmless! No, really!' " The Canadian version, designed by Ellen Cipriano, is similar to the American version but with a photo illustration rather than the disarming cartoon illustration. Cover art for the international releases contrast the natural environment with a decaying built environment. Adam Grupper voiced the ten hour long, unabridged English language audiobook which was published by Macmillan Audio
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
and BBC Audiobooks
BBC Audiobooks
BBC Audiobooks is a publisher of audiobooks and also a range of spoken word and large-print titles.BBC Audiobooks has published unabridged audio novels, and also the BBC Radio Collection which incorporates dramatisations and non-fiction output derived from BBC Radio programming.In 2010, BBC...
, and released simultaneously with the hardcover book. AudioFile
AudioFile (magazine)
-Launch:The publication was launched in 1992 as a twelve-page black & white newsletter with about 50 critical reviews of audiobooks, focused on new releases. In 1997, it switched to a 36-page colour magazine format with about 60 reviews per issue and interviews with authors, readers, and...
gave the audio presentation its Earphones Award, called Grupper's reading sincere and balanced, and wrote, "Never veering into sensationalism, always objective and phlegmatic, Grupper takes what could be a depressing topic and makes it a book you just can't stop listening to".
Reception
As the book was released Weisman launched his book tour with stops throughout the United States, Canada and overseas to LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. Weisman did television interviews on The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
and The Today Show and radio interviews on Weekend Edition
Weekend Edition
Weekend Edition is the name given to a set of American radio news magazines produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It is the weekend counterpart to Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday , each of which airs for two hours, from 8 a.m. to 10...
, Talk of the Nation
Talk of the Nation
Talk of the Nation is a talk radio program based in the United States, produced by National Public Radio, and is broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Its focus is current events and controversial issues....
, The Diane Rehm Show
The Diane Rehm Show
The Diane Rehm Show is a National Public Radio call-in show based in the United States. In October, 2007, The Diane Rehm Show was named to Audience Research Analysis’ list of the top ten most powerful national programs in public radio – the only talk show on the list...
, Living on Earth
Living on Earth
Living on Earth is a weekly, hour-long and award-winning environmental news program distributed by Public Radio International.Hosted by Steve Curwood, the program features interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues, exploring how humans interact with their landscape. The show...
, Marketplace
Marketplace (radio program)
Marketplace is a radio program that focuses on business, the economy, and events that influence them. Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, the show is produced and distributed by American Public Media, in association with the University of Southern California...
, and As It Happens
As It Happens
As It Happens is a long-running interview show on CBC Radio One in Canada. Its 40th anniversary was celebrated on-air on 18 November 2008. It has been one of the most popular and acclaimed shows on CBC Radio; it is also distributed in the United States by Public Radio International.The bulk of the...
. Meanwhile, the book debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
for non-fiction hardcovers at #10 on July 29 and spent nine weeks in the top ten, peaking at #6 on August 12 and September 9. In the Canadian market, it spent 10 weeks on The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
s non-fiction best seller list, peaking at #3 on August 11. The book reached #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
Best-Sellers list for non-fiction on September 23 and spent 11 weeks on the USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
recommended the book for all environmental collections and the audiobook for most public and academic library audiobook collections. The book ranked #1 on Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
's top of 2007 and was listed in the Hudson Booksellers'
Hudson Group
The Hudson Group is an East Rutherford, New Jersey, based retailer which operates a chain of newsstands, bookstores, fast food restaurants, and other retail stores chiefly at airports and train stations in the United States. It was founded in 1918 by Ike Cohen as a newspaper distributorship in...
"Best Books published in 2007". In the Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
"Best Books of 2007"
Amazon's Best Books of the Year
Amazon's Best Books of the Year is a list of best books created yearly by Amazon.com. It is a list of best books picked by Amazon editors and customers. It began in 2000. Customer favorites are ranked according to the number of sales made through October, for books published in that calender year...
, it placed #4 overall in the United States and #1 in the non-fiction category in Canada.
The writing style was positively received as being vivid and well-written, sometimes grim, but with appropriate language. Even an overall negative review by Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
remarked the writing was "always lucid, sometimes elegant". In The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
Jennifer Schuessler said Weisman has a "flirtation with religious language, his occasionally portentous impassivity giving way to the familiar rhetoric of eco-hellfire". Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
found the writing had "an arid, plain, what-if style" while being "strangely uniform in tone". On the reporting techniques, Kamiya wrote that "[Weisman's] science reporting, at once lucid and full of wonder ... is the heart and soul of this book" and that it is "written as if by a compassionate and curious observer on another planet". The Plain Dealer book editor Karen Long said Weisman "uses the precise, unhurried language of a good science writer and shows a knack for unearthing unexpected sources and provocative facts".
Several critics found the lack of an anthropomorphic point of view hurt the book's relevance. Robert Braile in The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
wrote that it has "no real context ... no rationale for probing this fantasy other than [Weisman's] unsubstantiated premise that people find it fascinating". Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
also questioned the premise: "Imagining the human footprint on a post-human planet might be fun for dormitory potheads who have already settled the questions of God's existence and Fergie's hotness, but it's not clear why the rest of us need this level of documentary evidence". On the other hand, Alanna Mitchell in the Globe and Mail review found relevance in the context of society's passiveness to resource depletion combined with an anthropomorphic vanity. She writes the "book [is] designed to help us find the how of survival by shaking us out of our passive dance with death".
The book's environmental focus was also criticized by some. Christopher Orlet of The American Spectator
The American Spectator
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors...
wrote that it is "a prime example of the wrongheaded, extremist views of the Greens". Braile agrees that the book could be "an environmentalist's nightmare, possibly fueling the cheap shots taken at the green movement ... by critics who say environmentalists care more about nature than people". Environmentalist Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen is an American writer, editor, public speaker and futurist most noted for his bright green ideas.Steffen co-founded and ran the online magazine Worldchanging from its start in 2003 until its closure in 2010...
found the book presents nothing new, but that using the sudden and clean disappearance of humans provides a unique framework, although extremely unlikely and insensitive. Two critics who call the book a "Jeremiad
Jeremiad
A jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall....
" ultimately gave it a positive review. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
says "we learn during the course of this book, to feel good about the disappearance of humanity from the Earth".
Other critics hailed the environmental perspective. Chauncey Mabe of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel calls the book "one of the most satisfying environmental books of recent memory, one devoid of self-righteousness, alarmism or tiresome doomsaying". Tom Spears of the CanWest News Service
CanWest News Service
Postmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
concludes "it's more a portrait of ourselves, taken through an odd lens" and "[s]ometimes an obituary is the best biography".
Genre
The book is categorized as non-fiction scienceScience book
A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking , or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson...
but some commentators emphasize it may be better described as speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. The World Without Us is grounded in environmental
Environmental journalism
Environmental journalism is the collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, issues and people that are associated with the non-human world with which humans necessarily interact...
and science journalism
Science journalism
Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists and the public, and is still evolving.-Aim of science journalism:...
. Like other environmental books, it discusses the impact that the human race has had on the planet. Weisman's thought experiment removes the judgments and sufferings of humans by focusing on a hypothetical post-human world. This approach to the genre, which "throw[s] the spotlight on the earth itself", was found to be creative and objective. There have been other books that address similar topics, such as Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
's 1999 book Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. Science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers such as H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
(The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles...
, 1898) and John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
(The Day of the Triffids
The Day of the Triffids
The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic novel published in 1951 by the English science fiction author John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris, under the pen-name John Wyndham. Although Wyndham had already published other novels using other pen-name combinations drawn from his lengthy real...
, 1951) had earlier touched upon the possible fate of cities and other man-made structures after the sudden removal of their creators. Similar parallels in the decay of civilization are detailed in 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart
George R. Stewart
George Rippey Stewart was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley...
, Earth Abides
Earth Abides
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood "Ish" Williams, Emma, and the community they...
.
Addressing his approach, Weisman said that eliminating the human element eliminated the "fear factor" that people are doing something wrong or that they will die; it is meant to be read as a fantasy, according to the author. Josie Appleton of Spiked
Spiked (magazine)
Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society from a humanist and libertarian viewpoint.- Editors and contributors :...
related the book to "today’s romanticisation of nature" in that it linked "the decadence and detachment of a modern consumerist society" with an ignorance of the efforts required to produce products so easily disposed. Appleton also felt the book countered the "Nature knows best" notion by highlighting the randomness of natural forces.
Weisman's science journalism style uses interviews with academic and professional authorities to substantiate conclusions, while maintaining the "cool and dispassionate [tone]...of a scientific observer rather than an activist". Weisman said he purposely avoided the activist label: "Some of our finest science and nature writers only get read by people who already agree with them. It's nice to get some affirmation for whatever it is you believe is true, even if it's quite sobering, but I wanted to write something that people would read ... without minimizing the significance of what's going on, nor trivializing it, nor oversimplifying it." Richard Fortey
Richard Fortey
Richard A. Fortey FRS is a British palaeontologist and writer.-Career:Richard Fortey studied geology at the University of Cambridge and had a long career as a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Prof. Fortey’s research interests include, above all, trilobites...
compares the book to the works of Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...
, Tim Flannery
Tim Flannery
Timothy Fridtjof Flannery is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist and global warming activist....
and E.O. Wilson, and writes that The World Without Us "narrowly avoids engendering the gloom-and-doom ennui that tends to engulf the poor reader after reading a catalogue of human rapacity". Mark Lynas
Mark Lynas
Mark Lynas is a British author, journalist and environmental activist who focuses on climate change. He is a contributor to New Statesman, Ecologist, Granta and Geographical magazines, and The Guardian and The Observer newspapers in the UK; he also worked on the film The Age of Stupid...
in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
noted that "whereas most environmental books sag under the weight of their accumulated bad news, The World Without Us seems refreshingly positive". Demonstrating the optimism on the grim subject matter Appleton quotes an ecologist from the book saying "if the planet can recover from the Permian, it can recover from the human".
See also
- The Earth After UsThe Earth After UsThe Earth After Us is a 2008 non-fiction book by Jan Zalasiewicz about the geological legacy that humans might one day leave behind them.- External links :* BBC Review* Review in Science Daily* Review in Stanford Archaeolog-See also:...
explores the geological legacy of the human species. - There Will Come Soft RainsThere Will Come Soft Rains"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a 12-line poem by Sara Teasdale in her collection Flame and Shadow, published in 1920 . The subject of the poem imagines nature reclaiming the earth after humanity has been wiped out by a war...
, a 1920 poem by Sara TeasdaleSara TeasdaleSara Teasdale , was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.-Biography:...
. - After Man: A Zoology of the FutureAfter Man: A Zoology of the FutureAfter Man: A Zoology of the Future is a 1981 book by the Scottish geologist and author, Dougal Dixon. In it, he presents his hypothesis on how the fauna and geography could change 50 million years from now.-Geography of the future:...
considers the evolution of life on Earth 50 million years after the extinction of human beings. - The plot of Foundation and EarthFoundation and EarthFoundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
by Isaac AsimovIsaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
(a continuation of his Foundation Trilogy), includes Aurora, a habitable planet which was abandoned by people for thousands of years. That planet, however, was settled by people, and its limited ecology was maintained by them, leading to its deterioration in the absence of human beings.
There have been several TV specials relating to the same topic:
- Life After PeopleLife After PeopleLife After People is a television documentary series where scientists and other experts speculate about what the Earth might be like if humanity no longer existed, as well as the impact humanity's disappearance might have on the environment and the artificial aspects of civilization...
shows what would happen if humans disappeared instantly. - Aftermath: Population ZeroAftermath: Population ZeroAftermath: Population Zero is a two-hour Canadian special documentary film that premiered on Sunday, March 9, 2008 on the National Geographic Channel...
is the same as the above, but gives more detail into certain things. - The Future Is WildThe Future is WildThe Future Is Wild was a 2002 seven-part documentary television miniseries. Based on research and interviews with several scientists, the miniseries shows how life could evolve in the future if Homo sapiens became extinct; the Discovery Channel broadcast changed this outlook by stating the human...
, while not seeking to explain our disappearance, shows how life on Earth (without humans) would evolve 5, 100 and 200 million years in the future.
External links
- Declinism Declined A long review of The World Without Us.
- An interview with Alan Weisman about The World Without Us