Review: The World Without Us

I’ve been reading The World Without Us, a book by Alan Wiseman which asks the question: what happens to the earth if human beings were to disappear?

He starts small, looking at how long it would take for a house to decompose into it’s parts. It’s much shorter than you might realise! Although if you think about how much time we spend cleaning and maintaining our homes, maybe we get an idea of how much effort it takes to keep them clean and standing.

He then looks at lots of other aspects of the impact we’ve had on this planet. Cities, nature reserves, petrochemicals, the ancient wonders of the world, weapons and art and the Voyager space probes. I was most amazed by the ancient underground cities in Turkey – they’re still there today even though they were begun in 700BC.

This book is fascinating, and while I was reading it my mood switched between inspiration over the amazing resilience of nature, and depression over how determined it seems we are to mess it up permanently. Wiseman finishes the book with some musings on human nature and the challenges we face if we want to still have a home in the future.

You might like to check out the website for the book: it’s got a couple of animations showing photos of locations mentioned in the book and the decay rate of houses.

Recommended?
Fans of science, nature and history documentaries will get a kick out of this book. It ties in nicely with facts you’ll have picked up from tv and the news. It can get a little dry at times, but usually the next section picks up again when Wiseman interviews an expert who lives in the area being considered. Well worth a trip to the library for this one.