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  • World Made by Hand

  • The World Made by Hand Novels, Book 1
  • Written by: James Howard Kunstler
  • Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
  • Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (29 ratings)

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World Made by Hand cover art

World Made by Hand

Written by: James Howard Kunstler
Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
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Publisher's Summary

In The Long Emergency, celebrated social commentator James Howard Kunstler explored how the terminal decline of oil production combined with climate change had the potential to put industrial civilization out of business. In World Made by Hand, an astonishing work of speculative fiction, Kunstler brings to life what America might be, a few decades hence, after these catastrophes converge.

The electricity has flickered out. The automobile age is over. In Union Grove, a little town in upstate New York, the future is nothing like people thought it would be. Life is hard and close to the bone. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president, and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren’t sure. The townspeople’s challenges play out in a dazzling, fully realized world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields and rivers, no longer polluted, and replenished with fish.

This is the story of Robert Earle and his fellow townspeople and what happens to them one summer in a country that has changed profoundly. A powerful tale of love, loss, violence, and desperation, World Made by Hand is also lyrical and tender, a surprising story of a new America struggling to be born - a story more relevant now than ever.

©2008 James Howard Kunstler (P)2010 Blackstone Audiobooks

What the critics say

“Richly imagined.” ( O, The Oprah Magazine)
“Far from a typical postapocalyptic novel…An impassioned and invigorating tale whose ultimate message is one of hope, not despair.” ( San Francisco Chronicle)
“Brilliant.” ( Chicago Tribune)

What listeners say about World Made by Hand

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good listen

realistic story. good characters. when the world goes to shit, there isn't going to be some super woman that is going to lead. men will take the dominant roles.

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Great story line

A book a keep you reading, great series about the bleak future. Series is excellent

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okay

good story, but I don't buy that all of the women in the community would just submit and "step out of social/political life". but I guess if it is a male author... at least he didn't try to speak in a female perspective.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not a survival SHTF type of book

I was looking for a book like One Second After and I thought this book would be it but it was not even close.
I wanted a book about surviving some sort of disaster but this book was about life a few years after such an event.

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