The World Without Us Review

Looking for a new concept to explore? Try the book filled with what ifs!

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Kailey Pickering, Senior Staff Writer

What if the entire human race was wiped off of the planet all at once? What would happen? Would nature flourish or would it suffer? Would the soaring buildings we left stay leaving our mark on the earth, or would they crumble to pieces? In The World Without Us, Alex Weissman explores this intriguing and capturing theory through a number of thoughtful analysis of what would happen if humanity simply disappeared…

You would think that environmentalists would immediately jump to the conclusion that the world would flourish, and while plants would overtake our towering creations, that is not where the effects would end. In fact as humans have been the top of the food chain for centuries, species would be overpopulated and eventually another would climb to the top to take our place. Without our maintenance teams, New York would flood in a day and bridges would crumble in a month.

But this is only the beginning, Weissman paints a picture of what ifs as he goes back in time to the Peleastonian ages and describes beautiful places that either have existed and were destroyed or that still flourish today. Weissman shows his reader the beauty of the world, beauty that was created both with and without human interaction.

Weissman also goes into detail to describe environmental problems that would impact this foreign outcome. He talks of plastic floating in the sea and nuclear plants that would explode in hours if it were not for human supervision. Weissman goes on to list a million products of humans short time on this spinning blue planet.

Packed with information, new ways of thinking, and a million different theories, The World Without Us is a book you will not be able to help but find more and more interesting. Filled with a million what ifs correlating with facts, this book is most definitely one to check out.