Review of "Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us" on 'Goodreads'
Maybe pick it up again, but not at this time.
English language
Published June 15, 2022 by IRB MEDIA.
Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us
by Irb Media
Irb Media: Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us (2022, IRB MEDIA)
- ISBN:
- 979-8-8225-4095-8
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4 stars
(20 reviews)
Review of "Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
The premise of The World Without Us is the title. Naturally, the author has thought and researched the topic more than the reader, but I was not prepared for what a massively depressing onslaught this would be. It is, in fact, more depressing than anything else I’ve read in a long time. First, the world is not without us, and it won’t be soon. Second, several of the author’s scenarios, e.g. What will happen to the huge petrochemical plants in Houston when nobody is there to maintain them, and what will be the consequences for the life that we haven’t already destroyed?, show that it is too late to do anything about so many of our machinations. Third, it’s easy to go off hiking, enjoy the fresh air, and pretend that all is well or at least reversible, but this book is unrelenting, and we are reminded that something like …
The premise of The World Without Us is the title. Naturally, the author has thought and researched the topic more than the reader, but I was not prepared for what a massively depressing onslaught this would be. It is, in fact, more depressing than anything else I’ve read in a long time. First, the world is not without us, and it won’t be soon. Second, several of the author’s scenarios, e.g. What will happen to the huge petrochemical plants in Houston when nobody is there to maintain them, and what will be the consequences for the life that we haven’t already destroyed?, show that it is too late to do anything about so many of our machinations. Third, it’s easy to go off hiking, enjoy the fresh air, and pretend that all is well or at least reversible, but this book is unrelenting, and we are reminded that something like the nuclear waste that is currently stored in sheds behind cyclone fences on the grounds of the reactors wherever they might be, cannot have a happy ending whether we are here or not. Professor Weisman does try to put a very mild happy spin on things at the end, after all, the sun will become a red giant star and fry this rock in time, and from the point of view of the universe what does it all matter anyway? Oy.
Review of "Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us" on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Great book, simultaneously uplifting and depressing. After reading this, I can't help but think that we really suck as a species; it's amazing how badly we've fucked up the planet. But it helps knowing that life will continue - in some form or another - after we're gone, and that there are still things we can do to (slightly) mitigate the damage.
Review of "Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Great book. The author start with the idea that what would happen if suddenly all people disappeared. The authors uses Manhattan quite often, specially to link decay processes into real cases.
A brilliant idea, but very much "inflated". What I mean is that it is the case of a great idea, that the authors inflates into 100 pages or more. This book should have been 50 at most. The nice thing is that the author kept the general idea in the first part fo the book, so you can just read until you hit your limit for density of information. Mine was roughly half the book.
Review of "Summary of Alan Weisman's the World Without Us" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This book taught me a lot about how humanity affects/controls/takes advantage of the earth. It started out really well, but got a little dodgy in the middle. At some point the author seems a little whiny about how humans are destroying the planet. However sticking with the book it finishes well and over all like I said before it was a major learning experience and not always how you think. <br/> When thinking of how I was going to rate the book I gave it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but considering the amount of interesting facts that it contains, I settled on 4. While this review might not seem glowing, I would still suggest this book to anyone interested in understanding the human plight/blight.
Subjects
- Social sciences