Book Review

Title: The World Without Us

Author: Alan Weisman

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Pages: 369

Released: July 14^th 2008

ISBN: 978-1-55468-226-3

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey (Ontario Correspondent – Canada)

I must admit to loving books about the impending doom humanity has burdened itself with. The World Without Us has received some hefty praise this year for its compelling perspective on how the world would look without mankind. No plagues, or nuclear meltdown have created this disappearance of the population, but we simply just ceased to exist one day and all that was left behind was our debris.

Almost exonerating in theory, The World Without Us appears to be a book of hope wrapped in a foil of despair, or even vice versa for that matter. The logic of World Without Us had me walking both backwards and forwards in thought at the same time. Was World Without Us supposed to inspire humanity to be more conscious? Was it an uplifting doomsday book? Why was this theory so compelling? Feeling the book left me with more questions then answers, I was disparaged at how the books logic ran. Of course, when I could get passed the unique perspective, what spoke within those pages was how the earth would slowly reshape itself without humanity.

Weisman, a respected and award winning journalist of the New York and L.A. Times Magazine, has meticulously scoured the world for information and interesting examples of scientists who are already making some compelling finds and research discoveries, or actual examples of places untouched by man for certain amounts of time. Weisman takes a close look (with scientists in tow) at our development over time and how we shaped the world around us; The World Without Us is as much an analysis of anthropology as it is a step into suspending ones beliefs.

What was vibrantly compelling was how Weisman slips into his book the cases of man against man; the Holocaust, Chernobyl, Slavery – where humanity somehow already left this world. Weisman tackles the subject of population overgrowth equally stating “The intelligent solution would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would be poignant and distressing in ways, but not fatal. It would henceforth limit every female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.”

Overall, The World Without Us has some individual elements of great interest and compelling subject matter, but the premise seemed almost inhibiting as a way of making the point about humanities involvement in the earth’s development. I didn’t feel compelled to activate change like I did after reading recently Jacques Cousteau’s final book The Human, The Orchid, And The Octopus; which I think was a purpose to the World Without Us which never fully actualized itself. Despite being Time Magazine’s must read book of the year, I felt some other books published on this subject were more effective reads.