Fascinating descriptions of some existing or abandoned locations, together with extrapolations of how things might look if we humans really mess up our planet to the extent we can no longer live on it. ( )

This book was not what I thought it was going to be, and I was mightily disappointed.

What did I think it would be? Well, I thought it would look at what would become of the planet Earth if tomorrow the human species simply vanished; basically, what it says on the tin. What the book spends an extraordinary amount of time actually discussing is what existed before humans evolved and what horrible things we have done since then. I fail to see what the Mau Mau Uprising or what killed off the woolly mammoths have to do with this book, and yet there they are, gobbling up space and too much of my time.

I made it a handful of pages past 100, and in that space there were about two chapters in the book that actually talked about what would happen to human-made and natural spaces once humans were gone. That's it, just two! They were fantastic chapters, very informative and easy to read, but the off-topic junk is taking up too much space and I find myself actually angry at the prospect of reading this book. ( )

I remember being interested when first published, so I could not resist a paperback reissue.

A fresh reminder that geologically, we are all just a lingering breath. The surface of the earth has been made and remade nearly endless times. Lightly touches on another point I usually make in these discussion, which is that speciation will certainly happen again once we are gone - so our focus on endangered species sort of misses the point. Of course we should be better stewards, but we will quickly be forgotten as multiple new species burst forth from our demise. ( )

The premise of The World Without Us is the title. Naturally, the author has thought and researched the topic more than the reader, but I was not prepared for what a massively depressing onslaught this would be. It is, in fact, more depressing than anything else I’ve read in a long time. First, the world is not without us, and it won’t be soon. Second, several of the author’s scenarios, e.g. What will happen to the huge petrochemical plants in Houston when nobody is there to maintain them, and what will be the consequences for the life that we haven’t already destroyed?, show that it is too late to do anything about so many of our machinations. Third, it’s easy to go off hiking, enjoy the fresh air, and pretend that all is well or at least reversible, but this book is unrelenting, and we are reminded that something like the nuclear waste that is currently stored in sheds behind cyclone fences on the grounds of the reactors wherever they might be, cannot have a happy ending whether we are here or not. Professor Weisman does try to put a very mild happy spin on things at the end, after all, the sun will become a red giant star and fry this rock in time, and from the point of view of the universe what does it all matter anyway? Oy. ( )

A fascinating thought experiment about what would happen to the world if humans suddenly disappeared. Some rather dated language now but generally a really interesting and genuinely provocative read. ( )