The World Without Us perspective. Chauncey Mabe of the "South Florida Sun-Sentinel" calls the book "one of the most satisfying environmental books of recent memory, one devoid of self-righteousness, alarmism or tiresome doomsaying". Tom Spears of the CanWest News Service concludes "it's more a portrait of ourselves, taken through an odd lens" and "[s]ometimes an obituary is the best biography". The book is categorized as non-fiction science but some commentators emphasize it may be better described as speculative fiction. "The World Without Us" is grounded in environmental and science journalism. Like other environmental books, it discusses the impact that the human race has had
Benwood, West Virginia the early 1910s. Boggs Run Elementary School is located on Boggs Run Road beyond the Benwood city limits. It was first housed in a wooden structure, but was later replaced with a brick structure on the same site about 1927. The school closed in 1990 at the end of the 1989–1990 school year. The brick school building still stands, and it now houses a Halloween museum. Union High School, located in South Benwood on Marshall Street, was established in 1913 when Benwood High School was consolidated with McMechen High School. Union operated as a high school (grades 9, 10, 11