Praise:
[No] “end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it story…is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.”
—Boston Globe
"I don't think I've read a better non-fiction book this year.”
—Lev Grossman, TIME Book Critic
"This is 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: The Wealth of Communities and The Durable Future
“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
"A refreshing, and oddly hopeful, look at the fate of the environment."
—BusinessWeek
“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.”
—Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams
"Brilliantly creative. An audacious intellectual adventure. His thought experiment is so intellectually fascinating, so oddly playful, that it escapes categorizing and clichés. It sucks us in with a vision of what is, what has been and what is yet to come. The book is addictive…By appealing not just to our fear and guilt but to our love for our planetary home, The World Without Us makes saving the world as intimate an act as helping a child. It’s a trumpet call that sounds from the other end of the universe and from inside us all."
—Salon
"Extraordinarily farsighted. A beautiful and passionate jeremiad against deforestation, climate change, and pollution."
—Boston Globe
“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
"…in his provocative new book, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman adds a dash of fiction to his science to address a despairing problem: the planet’s health."
—U.S. News & World Report
"Grandly entertaining."
—TIME
"Alan Weisman has produced, if not a bible, at least a Book of Revelation.”
—Newsweek
"One of the most ambitious ‘thought experiments’ ever."
—The Cincinnati Enquirer
"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."
—The Washington Post
"As fascinating as it is surprising."
—BusinessWeek
“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
"An astonishing mass of reportage that envisions a world suddenly bereft of humans."
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
