Told through stories from an extraordinary career and fascinating research, this urgent book, written by the world's most famous living naturalist and an internationally best-selling author, explores one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature--hope.

As if Annie Dillard walked into THE WORLD WITHOUT US: a beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence. Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere...

Creative nonfiction picture book explains evolution and natural selection. A newly-emerged peppered moth blends in with other speckled-winged moths on lichen-covered branches, but over time the moths with black wings increase as trees are blackened by soot from man-made machines.

"It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, "500-year" storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast....

The epic story of the buffalo in America, from prehistoric times to today-a moving and beautifully illustrated work of natural history. The American buffalo-our nation's official mammal-is an improbable, shaggy beast that has found itself at the center of many of our most mythic and sometimes heartbreaking tales. The largest land animals in the Western Hemisphere, they are survivors of a mass extinction that erased ancient species that were even larger....