I’ve just bought my copy of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. He had the great idea to imagine what happens to the Earth if humanity vanishes.

I’ve been surprised that none of the reviews I’ve read have mentioned George Stewart’s Earth Abides. It’s a brilliant fictional account along the lines of what Weisman is trying to approach scientifically. What’s startling about Stewart’s work is that it was written in 1949, before environmental thinking became common currency. Although I read it a few years ago, before I became a Berkeleyite, it’s also wonderful that the book is set in the Berkeley hills, although I don’t think Berkeley is ever quite named in the book.

Weisman, incidentally, does credit Stewart in his bibliography. And the book clearly had an impact on him. Here’s the final line of his acknowledgments: “Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.”