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. 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. 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 the Antarctic ozone hole, and "The Real Indiana Jones" on the Mayan civilization) and one published in the Condé Nast Traveler ("Diamond in the Wild" on diamond mining encroaching on North America's largest wildlife preserve), as well as ''Discovers "Earth Without People". 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, archaeologist William Rathje on plastics in garbage, forest botanist Oliver Rackham on vegetative cover across Britain, anthropologist Arthur Demarest on the crash of Mayan civilization, paleobiologist Douglas Erwin on evolution, and philosopher Nick Bostrom on Transhumanism. Synopsis The book is divided into 27 chapters, with a prelude, coda, bibliography and index. Each chapter deals with a new topic, such as the potential fates of plastics, petroleum infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and artworks. It is written from the point of view of a science journalist with explanations and testimonies backing his predictions. There is no unifying narrative, cohesive single-chapter overview, or thesis. Weisman's thought experiment pursues two themes: how nature would react to the disappearance of humans and what legacy humans would leave behind. To foresee how other life could continue without humans, Weisman reports from areas where the natural environment exists with little human intervention, like the Białowieża Forest, the Kingman Reef, and the Palmyra Atoll. He interviews biologist E. O. Wilson and visits with members of