The Burning Earth: A Material History of the Last 500 Years

(Hardback)

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A brilliant, paradigm-shifting global survey of how human history has reshaped the planet, and vice versa Ever since innovations in agriculture vastly expanded production of the staples of food energy, our remarkable achievements in reshaping nature have brought about an overwhelming expansion in the life chances of billions of people. Yet every technological innovation has also empowered humans to exploit each other and the planet with devastating brutality, twinning the stories of environment and of Empire, genocide and eco-cide, as with Spanish silver mining in Peru and British gold mining in South Africa. After the age of empire, new nations raced to make up lost ground, expanding human freedom at devastating ecological cost. Amrith's environmental lens provides an essential new way of understanding war- as a massive reshaping of the earth through the global mobilization of natural resources, those resources including humans themselves. He also makes clear that migration is often a consequence of environmental harm. Reinterpreting a history previously seen from a Euro-and-anthropocentric viewpoint, Amrith relates in brilliant prose, and on the largest canvas, a magisterial, mind-altering epic - vibrant with stories, characters, vivid images and rich archival resources.

Reviews

Ranging from the Mongol expansion to contemporary climate change, Amrith has given us the most readable global environmental history yet. With an eye for the telling detail combined with a sense of the big picture, this book brings environmental perspectives together with such major world historical themes as empire, freedom and energy. A towering achievement and a joy to read * J.R. McNeill *
The Burning Earth, which is nothing short of a history of the world, is as beautiful as it is indispensable, as breathtaking as it is devastating. It answers questions most of us have been too daft even to ask. It will set you on fire * Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States *
The Burning Earth is a marvelously erudite and wide-ranging account of the steadily accelerating ecological transformation of the planet since the twelfth century. An indispensable contribution to both environmental and global history * Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement *
A devastating panorama of human folly, a poetic meditation on how the search for freedom from nature undermined the very conditions for life on earth. Beautifully written, Sunil Amriths global and long-term view is crucial to understanding the environmental predicaments we are in, and, perhaps, to restore a distraught world. A must read for anyone concerned with the state of the planet * Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton *
A wrenching, clear-eyed reckoning with humanitys extractive relationship to the natural world that plants seeds of insight on how we can shift to an ethos of regeneration and repair. Every page challenges us to conceive the future we want for the planet...and ourselves * Kate Orff, author of Toward an Urban Ecology *
Memorable and mesmerizing. Sunil Amrith has gifted us a page-turner of a book, written with passionate lucidity. Historically deep and geographically generous, The Burning Earth dramatizes human freedoms profound dependence on the health and integrity of our environments. Amriths capacious insights and his worldly perspective make this a standout title for anyone interested in the long arc of environmental justice * Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor *

Sunil Amriths Burning Earth, which is nothing short of a history of the world, is as beautiful as it is indispensable, as breathtaking as it is devastating. It answers questions most of us have been too daft even to ask. It will set you on fire.

--Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

Author Bio

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History and professor in the School of the Environment at Yale University. He is the author of four books, and a recipient of multiple awards including a MacArthur "Genius" fellowship and the 2024 Fukuoka Prize for outstanding achievements in the field of Asian studies. He grew up in Singapore and lives in Connecticut.