The World Without Us

Compelling ... jammed packed with fascinating "what ifs"

A powerful vision of a possible future for the earth

A fascinating nonfiction eco-thriller

Drawing from hundreds of interviews with engineers, scientists and archaeologists, it unfolds like a thriller

Guardian Best Books about the Post-Human Earth

One of the grandest thought experiments of our time, a tremendous feat of imaginative reporting!

Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy

Flesh-creepingly good fun . . . Food for thought

A wonderful idea... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book... Terrific

The imaginative power of The World Without Us is compulsive and nearly hypnotic--make sure you have time to be kidnapped into Alan Weisman's alternative world before you sit down with the book, because you won't soon return. This is a text that has a chance to change people, and so make a real difference for the planet

Charles Wohlforth, author of L.A. Times Book Prize-winning The Whale and the Supercomputer

An exacting account of the processes by which things fall apart. The scope is breathtaking...the clarity and lyricism of the writing itself left me with repeated gasps of recognition about the human condition. I believe it will be a classic

Dennis Covington, author of National Book Award finalist Salvation on Sand Mountain

The book boasts an amazingly imaginative conceit that manages to tap into underlying fears and subtly inspire us to consider our interaction with the planet

Alan Weisman offers us a sketch of where we stand as a species that is both illuminating and terrifying. His tone is conversational and his affection for both Earth and humanity transparent

Fascinating, mordant, deeply intelligent, and beautifully written, The World Without Us depicts the spectacle of humanity's impact on the planet Earth in tragically poignant terms that go far beyond the dry dictates of science. This is a very important book for a species playing games with its own destiny

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency

Marvellous...the first environmentalist not to preach, but to present us with the sober, humbling facts ... so intricate is his web of evidence, so seductive his argument, that he doesn't need to preach ... The effect of The World Without Us is a little like reading Pliny the Elder's history of the world: a sense of nature as the caster of spells and marvels, but with ourselves not as wide-eyed observers, nor as villains somehow separate from nature, but simply as resourceful and blundering

This is not a book about the end of the world but about an imagined beginning ...The results of this huge thought-experiment are both fascinating and surprising. Fascinating for what they tell us about the impermanence of the works of man, and surprising for the simple reason that it soon becomes clear that our world would carry on regardless, indifferent to our demise

Weisman's gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out

An idea that is so lateral and clever, so powerfully evocative and masterfully executed that the only appropriate response is fervent envy

A wonderful idea ... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book

A quick, absorbing read - a summer beach book with brains

If you can stomach only one end-of-the world-as-we-know it story this summer, none is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman's The World Without Us

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including the global bestseller The World Without Us, which has been translated into 34 international languages and was nominated for numerous awards. His writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and many other places. Alan has worked on all seven continent and reported from 58 countries, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Revised Edition with New Afterword from the Author 
 
 Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year 
 
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 
 
 Over 3 million copies sold in 35 Languages 
 
"On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go." 
 
What if mankind disappeared right now, forever... what would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be? 
 
Speaking to experts in fields as diverse as oil production and ecology, and visiting the places that have escaped recent human activity to discover how they have adapted to life without us, Alan Weisman paints an intriguing picture of the future of Earth. Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future.

Alan Weisman

A wide-ranging look at visionaries who are working on ways to lessen the worst effects of climate change….[an] impeccably written and thoroughly inspiring narrative

Weisman’s detailed examination of their and others’ work shows that there are paths to solving the world's largest problems. The reader will come away with a renewed belief that hope for the future need not be lost

This is one of the most exciting books I've ever read, full of innovation. Hope Dies Last is a book of heroism, courage, and selfless love. Every story is a way forward. Alan Weisman has written the exact book we need to fight for our place on Earth

What a wonderful, exhilarating, life-affirming book! The people, creatures and ambitions Weisman introduces us to are ingenious, revelatory, and awe-inspiring... Reading this book made me not only glad to be alive, but proud to be human, and deeply grateful for the extraordinarily brilliant and generous souls inhabiting these pages

John Vaillant, award winning author of FIRE WEATHER

Consider this a non-fiction companion to Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future: Alan Weisman has traveled the world to find the people doing what they can to slow down the greatest tragedy in our history. You'll be inspired--maybe even to become one of these people yourself

A deeply reported investigation into what it means to be alive on a rapidly-warming planet. Weisman travels the world to meet with scientists, scholars, activists, and religious leaders who understand that the fate of the world as we know it is at stake and who are driven to do something about it. What Weisman discovers is not just brilliant minds and heroic deeds, but a kind of desperate love for this miraculous planet we live on. Hope Dies Last is one of those rare books that makes you proud to be human

Jeff Goodell, author of the New York Times bestseller THE HEAT WILL KILL YOU FIRST

This profound narrative offers not just a clear-eyed look at our predicament, but a testament to the remarkable human capacity for hope even in extraordinarily challenging times

Neil Shubin, author of the bestseller YOUR INNER FISH

Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future

'One of the most exciting books I've ever read'- Louise Erdrich 
 
In this profoundly human and moving narrative, the bestselling author of The World Without Us returns with a book ten years in the making: a study of the precarious state of our planet and what it means to be a human on the front lines of this existential crisis. His new uplifting book, Hope Dies Last, is a literary evocation of our current predicament and the core optimism of the human species against the worst odds we have ever faced. 
 
To write this book, Weisman has travelled the globe witnessing the devastation of climate change and meeting the people striving to mitigate and undo our past transgressions. From the flooding Marshall Islands to wetlands renewal in Iraq, and from the Netherlands to the Korean DMZ to cities and coastlines around the world, he has witnessed personally the best of humanity battling the heat, the hunger, and the rising tides. He profiles the work of big thinkers—engineers, scientists, economists, and psychiatrists—as they devise innovative and wildly creative responses to an uncertain and frightening future. We are at an unprecedented point in history, as our collective exploits on this planet are leading us to our own undoing, and we could be one of the species marching toward extinction. 
 
A remedy to climate anxiety by one of our most important voices on humans’ relationship with the Earth, Hope Dies Last fills a crucial gap in the global conversation: Now that we have passed the point of no return in our battle against climate change, how do we feel, behave, act, plan, and dream as we approach a future decidedly different from what we had expected?

Alan Weisman

Praise for Hope Dies Last

A wide-ranging look at visionaries who are working on ways to lessen the worst effects of climate change….[an] impeccably written and thoroughly inspiring narrative

Weisman’s detailed examination of their and others’ work shows that there are paths to solving the world's largest problems. The reader will come away with a renewed belief that hope for the future need not be lo ...

This is one of the most exciting books I've ever read, full of innovation. Hope Dies Last is a book of heroism, courage, and selfless love. Every story is a way forward. Alan Weisman has written the exact ...

A wide-ranging look at visionaries who are working on ways to lessen the worst effects of climate change….[an] impeccably written and thoroughly inspiring narrative

Weisman’s detailed examination of their and others’ work shows that there are paths to solving the world's largest problems. The reader will come away with a renewed belief that hope for the future need not be lo ...

This is one of the most exciting books I've ever read, full of innovation. Hope Dies Last is a book of heroism, courage, and selfless love. Every story is a way forward. Alan Weisman has written the exact ...

A wide-ranging look at visionaries who are working on ways to lessen the worst effects of climate change….[an] impeccably written and thoroughly inspiring narrative

Weisman’s detailed examination of their and others’ work shows that there are paths to solving the world's largest problems. The reader will come away with a renewed belief that hope for the future need not be lo ...

This is one of the most exciting books I've ever read, full of innovation. Hope Dies Last is a book of heroism, courage, and selfless love. Every story is a way forward. Alan Weisman has written the exact ...

Books by Alan Weisman

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