The World Without Us was a book that I'd seen reviewed in a few different place - Outside Magazine, maybe Smithsonian? Sounded interesting, so I picked it up. The main focus is on how the earth would react if it were suddenly without human influence. The Weisman tracks down experts in many different fields to ask them th shed their insight on the question, and the results are pretty interesting. The thing that captivated me, though, were the places that the author found that, for one reason or another, have been missing humans for some time. The two examples that spring to mid are the Korean De-militarized Zone, where much wildlife is enjoying a human-less existence, and a city on Cypress (?) that has been left abandoned since a civil war. Haunting, and a good exercise that puts some perspective on things.
Book 51
1 comment:
That does sound like an interesting theory to research- Makes me think of the book "City of Ember" and its sequel, "City of Sparks" by Jeanne DuPrau. (Haven't read the third in that series, though, "Prophet of Yonwood.") In the first book, there is a massive war that destroys most of civilization, but not before an underground city is built. 100 people were chosen to keep the population going, 50 babies (25 girls and 25 boys, no relation to each other) and 50 elderly couples that would live long enough to raise the children and get them started in their new city. They lived for many many generations before a lock is broken and the people are able to escape once more into the open space where they find old abandoned cities and small towns that managed to survive. This moves you to the second book and how they fare on their own, and the people they meet who teach them how to live outside...
I hope I didn't just give away too much of this series to make you (anyone) not want to read it now. It is really good, and makes you think about how we live today, and grateful for what we have.
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