LoveReading Says
What if humankind disappeared from the face of the world – overnight? What would happen, how long would the world take to recover, how long before evidence of our existence disappears beneath the vegetation? There are many different answers to this question, with different time frames and scenarios and Alan Weisman’s questioning of people in the know, the experts and scientists has thrown up some amazing (and terrifying) facts. He knits all this together into an engrossing story that whilst the stuff of fantasy, has roots in the environmental damage inflicted on the planet today.
Comparison: The Earth After Us by Jan Zalasiewicz, The Last Generation by Fred Pearce, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond
Sue Baker
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The World Without Us Synopsis
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Time #1 Nonfiction Book* An Entertainment Weekly #1 Nonfiction Book *A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and Salon Book Awards* A Kansas City Star's Top 100 Book of the Year *A Mother Jones' Favorite Book* The 15th Anniversary edition of the worldwide bestseller that answers the ultimate question: what happens to the Earth when human beings disappear? Now with a new afterword from the author. The World Without Us is a penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth. 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, Alan Weisman deftly illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.
In this revelatory account, Alan Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, and radio waves may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.
As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman draws on every field of science to present an environmental assessment like no other. This is narrative nonfiction at its finest--one of the most affecting portraits yet of humankind's place on this planet.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781250834003 |
| Publication date: |
19th April 2022 |
| Author: |
Alan Weisman |
| Publisher: |
Picador USA |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
448 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Popular Science
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| Recommendations: |
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