Alan Weisman, "World Without Us, World With Us"

Humanity's impact, nature's resilience

Weisman's book, The World Without Us, grew out of two questions, he said. One was, "How can I write a best-seller about the environment?" The answer to that was the second question: "How would the rest of nature behave without the constant pressure we put on it?"

On the border of Ukraine and Belarus is a small intact remnant—500,000 acres—of the primordial forest that once covered Europe from Siberia to Ireland. In the Puszcza Bialowieska, with its...