Book SummaryThe World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The World Without Us

The human race has left an indelible mark on the planet. We’ve built cities and farms, redirected rivers, tunneled through mountains, and driven species to extinction. In many places, we’ve reshaped entire ecosystems, sometimes through carelessness and sometimes by design. And yet, how permanent are the changes we’ve made to our planet? Have we left scars that will never heal, or is nature resilient enough to erase any damage we’ve done?

In The World Without Us, published in 2007, science journalist Alan Weisman presents the following thought experiment: What would happen if the human race vanished overnight? What impacts, positive or negative, would our disappearance have on the world? He concludes that in many ways, nature would recover, and the signs that our species had existed at all would eventually be all but impossible to recognize. However, the world that exists after us would be significantly different than the one that came...

The World Without Us Summary The Pristine Earth

Our story begins long before the advent of human civilization. The Earth of the last few hundred million years was a world of lush forests, seas brimming with life, and giant creatures that wandered the land. Weisman describes the primeval world, with ages of warmth punctuated by periods of glaciation and sudden mass extinction events, until humanity emerged from our African cradle and spread to every continent on the planet.

The seas are the source of all life on Earth and are home to the true rulers of the world—the microbial life that existed for eons before larger plants and animals evolved, and will be here long after the rest of us die out.

(Shortform note: It’s not a stretch to claim that microbes, not humans, are the dominant life form on the planet. In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong explains that not only were microbes the only living organisms for the majority of history, but they also created the preconditions for life as we know it to evolve. For example, the nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere we take for granted is merely...

The World Without Us Summary Humanity’s Footprint

The human race’s effect on other species is only one of the ways we’ve left a mark on the world. Weisman discusses many imprints the human race has made as we’ve restructured the natural landscape to suit our own needs. Among these are how we’ve turned vast swaths of forest into farmland, how we’ve crisscrossed the world with cities and infrastructure to support our growing population, and how we’ve dealt (responsibly or otherwise) with the never-ending supply of waste that industrial civilization generates.

Agriculture

While our lives as hunter-gatherers had an impact on the wild, we truly began to reshape the world when we first learned how to farm. While agriculture has provided great benefits to the human species, freeing people from the constant hunt for food, it’s had a growing detrimental impact on the habitats of many other species, both plant and animal. Weisman tells of how the effects of farming have altered the landscape of the Old World and the New, and how modern farming practices using fertilizer and genetic modification, while drawing more produce from the soil than older methods, have had unintended consequences.

Farming begins with the clearing of land....

The World Without Us Summary A Post-Human World

Given all the ways in which we’ve reshaped the world and continue to affect it every day, Weisman asks a question that’s normally the purview of science fiction writers: What if the human race vanished all at once, but left all our buildings, roads, and power plants intact? We’ll explore Weisman’s answers to this question chronologically, first looking at the immediate effects of humanity’s sudden disappearance, then progressing through the first decades and centuries as the world adjusts to our absence, before finally imagining how the Earth might be thousands of years after we’re gone.

Weisman is clear to point out that this is just a thought experiment—he doesn’t advocate human extinction as a solution to the world’s environmental problems, though he does describe the environmental benefits we would see from a voluntary decline in population. Such declines are already taking place in countries where women have access to education, careers, and contraception. In the afterword to the book’s 2022 edition, Weisman remarks on the temporary reprieve the environment experienced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic—not because of the deaths, but because of the reduction in auto...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on the Struggle Between Nature and Society

Weisman paints a picture of the world that shows how thoroughly the human race is carving up the natural landscape to suit our own purposes. However, he argues that given the chance, nature could quickly take back the upper hand. Think about ways you’ve seen civilization and nature interact in your everyday environment.

In what sort of setting do you spend most of your time—urban, suburban, or rural? What plants and animals do you see on a regular basis? Are they wild and native to your region, or domesticated imports?

Shortform Exercise: Consider the Mark You Make on the World

As Weisman makes clear, the world was here long before our arrival and will continue long after we’re gone. However, we do leave an impact, both as a species and as individuals. Reflect on what changes you’ve made to the world and to the lives around you, as well as how your individual choices may carry on into the future.

Consider the place, family, and culture into which you were born. What circumstances prior to your birth would have the most profound impact on your childhood? What events in society and your immediate family set the stage for the path you would later take in life?