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
The World Without Us 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". 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