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''The World Without Us'' is a non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 ''Discover'' article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics, and Mount Rushmore would be among the longest- lasting evidence of human presence on Earth. The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list and #1 on the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on ''Time''〔(Poniewozik, James; Top 10 New TV Series; time.com )〕 and ''Entertainment Weekly's'' of 2007. 20th Century Fox has purchased the rights to the book with the intent of creating a motion picture. ==Background== The idea of exploring the effects of the depopulating of the Earth is an old one, having been a regular trope in science fiction novels for decades. Post-apocalyptic literature in general had often tried to imagine the fate of civilization and its artifacts after the end of humanity. Indeed, an extremely popular 1949 novel, ''Earth Abides,'' portrayed the breakdown of urban systems and structures after a pandemic, through the eyes of a survivor, who muses at the end of the first chapter: "What would happen to the world and its creatures without man? That he was left to see." ''The World Without Us'' applies a more ecological view to ''Earth Abides''. Before writing it, the author, Alan Weisman, had written four books, including, ''Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World,'' in 1998, about the eco-village of Gaviotas in Colombia; and ''An Echo In My Blood,'' in 1999, about his family's history immigrating from Ukraine to the United States. He has worked as an international journalist for American magazines and newspapers, and at the time of writing the book was an Associate Professor of Journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. The position required him to teach only one class in the spring semester, and he was free to travel and conduct research the rest of the year. The idea for ''The World Without Us'' was suggested to Weisman in 2004 by Josie Glausiusz, an editor at ''Discover''.〔Weisman (2007), 277.〕 She had pondered the idea for several years and asked Weisman to write a feature on the subject after she re-read "Journey through a Doomed Land", an article he published in 1994 in ''Harper's Magazine'' about the state of Chernobyl eight years after abandonment.〔 His ''Discover'' article, "Earth Without People", published in the February 2005 issue and re-printed in ''The Best American Science Writing 2006'' anthology, describes how nature has thrived in the abandoned Korean Demilitarized Zone and how nature would overwhelm the built environment of New York City.〔 Using interviews with paleoecologists, the article speculates that megafauna would return and that forest cover, like the Białowieża Forest, would spread over Europe and the eastern United States. The article raises the prospect of failing power plants, chemical plants, dams, and petroleum tanks. To expand this into a book, Weisman's agent found an editor and publisher at St. Martin's Press. Among the 23-page bibliography are two articles he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Magazine ("Naked Planet" on persistent organic pollutants, and "The Real Indiana Jones" on the Mayan civilization) and one published in the ''Condé Nast Traveler'' ("Diamond in the Wild" on diamond mining), as well as ''Discovers "Earth Without People".〔Weisman (2007), 289–311.〕 Additional research saw Weisman travel to England, Cyprus, Turkey, Panama, and Kenya. Interviews with academics quoted in the book include biologist E. O. Wilson on the Korean Demilitarized Zone,〔Weisman (2007), 129, 189–190.〕 archaeologist William Rathje on plastics in garbage,〔Weisman (2007), 119–120.〕 forest botanist Oliver Rackham on vegetative cover across Britain,〔Weisman (2007), 150–151.〕 anthropologist Arthur Demarest on the crash of Mayan civilization,〔Weisman (2007), 224–229.〕 paleobiologist Douglas Erwin on evolution,〔Weisman (2007), 229–232.〕 and philosopher Nick Bostrom on Transhumanism.〔Weisman (2007), 240–244.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The World Without Us」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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