The World Without Us

By: Alan Weisman

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, and man-made molecules may be our lasting gifts to the universe.

Just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations and the world's cities would crumble, asphalt jungles giving way to real ones. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists, who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna (like giants sloths that stood taller than mammoths), Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.

Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing and shows which human devastations are indelible and what of our highest art and culture would endure longest. Ultimately reaching a radical but persuasive solution to our planet's problems - one that needn't depend on our demise - this is narrative nonfiction at its finest, taking on an irresistible concept with gravity but a highly accessible touch.

©2007 Alan Weisman (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

"Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like." ( Publishers Weekly)

Such random fun

There is more in this book than you would expect. But you can see how it all fits together ... kind of sort of.

The best parts, I thought, were about what would happen if we were to just disappear . The decay of structure, the persistence of some materials, the impact on flora, fauna, the potential local and global catastrophies as we are no longer around to manage things.

He also covers pre-human conditions, fair enough, and some cases where regions have actually been abandoned. It's very interesting. He covers plastics, glass, nuclear plants, oil refineries, concrete, and exactly how steel and concrete bridges would fall, what trees would emerge through asphalt, and which plants and animals would do better (or worse) without us. It's all quite interesting, and seems well informed by paleontology, anthropology, climatology, biology, chemistry, physics, and more.

But he jumps around a lot, at times I felt I was listening to a different book but mainly it was fun. Part Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale, Harari's Sapiens, Rick Steve's travel books, Miodownik's clever books on materials, even some pretty far out sci go near the end..

I have to mention: the quick closing comments were a surprising bit of woo -- took me by surprise but then, he was probably exhausted. And it does fit his style to suddenly shift to something completely different.

Fun and engaging, recommend!

Interesting premises, but uneven

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Less moralizing - the points can be made without tortured metaphors and by just laying out the facts. Those facts make the point that we are overburdening the carrying capacity of the earth (should we wish the earth to remain similar, ecologically, to the way it has been for most of our existence). Delving into more opinion and less science weakens his arguments.

What about Adam Grupper’s performance did you like?

As always, Grupper is an excellent steward and keeps the reader engaged.

Any additional comments?

Good but not great popular science book. While there is a lot of really interesting science in here and a fascinating premise (very familiar to those who might have watched the History Channel's Life After People), the book's various sections often feel disjointed and the author has the bad habit of falling into emotional and moralizing tones rather than just sticking to the pure facts. Personifying natural or unnatural processes as evil or good just serve to annoy regular readers of scientific books. The book definitely could seed interest in studying some of the processes discussed in this book on a deeper level, but I found myself disengaging whenever the author strayed into nonscientific discussions and especially toward the end when he veered randomly into a somewhat bizarre vignette about how, if we were to disappear, perhaps our thoughts will have been beamed from our minds into space and could find their way back to earth. At that point I was very relieved the book ended soon thereafter.

Deeply interesting look at the end of us

Even though it can be quite depressing, thinking about everything we've done to fast track our own doom as humans, it is refreshing to hear that earth will reclaim what was always hers. Weissman did a great job researching and providing material in an engrossing way. The narration was also top-notch!

fascinating thought experiment

it has been a while since I have dove into an environmental book and this closely relates to my work in sustainable business. I appreciated the thought provoking and Incredibly well-researched writing of Weissman. However, I felt this was much longer than it needed to be, although he would say it's much shorter than it could have been. I could not listen to the whole thing as I felt I got overwhelmed with the details. That said, I am glad to have listened to it and feel, in some strange way, that it is one of those books that has changed my perspective, perhaps forever. it is true what he says that the world without us would flourish in a way that it currently does not with us. this thought forces us to consider the impact we have on the world and what we might do about it. It is surely difficult and inconvenient, even heartbreaking, to consider the difficult questions that he puts forth in this impressive book.

Good!

I tend to notice things about the way people speak, and the narrator of this book has a rather nasal voice. Other than that, this book was great! I've been meaning to read it for years, but never had the time. The audible version got me through a couple road trips.

Hates humanity! 

Typical college professor, hating on everything that humanity is or ever will be! This book is 99.9% negative. A little good information but mostly just hating. 

The World Without Us

He helps us look into the future. There are some alarming facts in this book that are quite disturbing. It's the kind of book that really makes you think. I recommend it.

Not post apocalyptic 🙁

I picked the book because I like the post apocalyptic genre. It was very tough to get through the book, took me a very long time over several months. This is like someone narrating a text book to you interspersed with an environmental puff piece. The author is heavily into the global warming theory, along with ALL aspects of environmental activism. If you’re into that kind of stuff you may like the book. I will say I learned information on topics I didn’t know about like mechanical engineering and such. Overall I would not recommend.

Deceptive

I am sympathetic to the now obvious real goals of the author. But i find the whole thing a bit deceptive. I thought I'd hear a fascinating book on the science of the title's subject. There is a little bit of this and it is all that gets talked about on talk shows. But most of the book is a constant harangue about just how awful humans are and how much better the world will be without us. Even as someone sympathetic to this view I find the whole thing taxing and not what I bought this book to hear about. The author should be more honest about his preaching. The reader does not help either with his stern horror house voice.

How can you mess this up

The subject at hand is limitlessly interesting, but the author's treatment of it drags a bit -- i wanted it to be more Mad Max, and the first chapter is, but by the end of it there was a real disconnect for me.