#12 in Nature & environment
The World Without Us
- 348
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The World Without Us” asks what becomes of the planet once people are gone, and answers in concrete, readable detail. Alan Weisman shows houses and cities decaying, forest reclaiming suburbs within centuries, and plastics, bronze and radioactive waste outlasting nearly everything else. Some readers find that the book strays from its theme and reads as a collection of pieces; others distrust its conservationist slant. The science stays within reach of non-specialists.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics and Mount Rushmore would be among the longest-lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.4 across 151 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 51% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Nature & environment average of 8.1. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.8 | 8 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 7.3 | 143 | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is The World Without Us?
It has 348 pages — shorter than 58% of the ranked books in Nature & environment.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Nature & environment — with scores between 8.0 and 8.7, closest to this book.
