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The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years
A 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 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.
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 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.
413 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 24, 2024
About the author
Sunil Amrith
14 books43 followersSunil Amrith is Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History, and a Director of the Joint Center for History and Economics.
Sunil Amrith grew up in Singapore, and received a B.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of Cambridge. He was a research fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge (2004–2006) and taught modern Asian history at Birkbeck College of the University of London (2006–2014) prior to joining the faculty of Harvard University, where he is currently Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and a professor of history. He is also a director of the Harvard Center for History and Economics. His additional publications include Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930–65 (2006) and Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (co-editor, 2014).
His research is on the trans-regional movement of people, ideas, and institutions, and has focused most recently on the Bay of Bengal as a region connecting South and Southeast Asia. Amrith's areas of particular interest include the history of migration, environmental history, and the history of public health. He is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and received the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities.
Sunil Amrith is a historian exploring migration in South and Southeast Asia and its role in shaping present-day social and cultural dynamics. His focus on migration, rather than political forces such as colonial empires and the formation of modern nations, demonstrates that South Asia (primarily India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (including Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore) are tied by centuries of movement of people and goods around and across the Bay of Bengal.
In Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (2011) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013), Amrith combines the theoretical frameworks of oceanic and environmental history with archival, ethnographic, and visual research to chart how migration transformed individuals, families, and communities. Using narratives and records left by coastal traders, merchants, and migrants, he evokes the lives of ordinary Indians who made homes in new lands across the bay. Amrith's examination of the emergence of diverse, multiethnic coastal communities sheds new light on the social and political consequences of colonization. Colonialism diminished some of the intimate cultural, social, and economic connections among the peoples of coastal areas while enabling new ones. Many bonds finally snapped during decolonization, however, when defining national boundaries and national identity became the priority.
Amrith's analysis of the forces driving migration in Crossing the Bay of Bengal takes into account the ways in which climatic patterns around the bay defined the lives of migrants and coastal residents. He will expand on this work in his current project on the history of environmental change in Asia, focusing particularly on the monsoon in the context of a changing climate. Amrith is leading a reorientation of South and Southeast Asian history and opening new avenues for understanding the region's place in global history.
Amrith's most recent book is Unruly Waters (Basic Books and Penguin UK), a history of the struggle to understand and control water in modern South Asia. His previous book, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Harvard University Press, 2013) was awarded the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History in 2014. He is also the author of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Decolonizing International Health: South and Southeast Asia, 1930-1965 (Palgrave, 2006), as well as articles in journals including the American Historical Review, Past and Present, and Economic and Political Weekly.
Amrith sits on the editorial boards of Modern Asian Studies and is one of the series editors of the Cambr
Sunil Amrith grew up in Singapore, and received a B.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of Cambridge. He was a research fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge (2004–2006) and taught modern Asian history at Birkbeck College of the University of London (2006–2014) prior to joining the faculty of Harvard University, where he is currently Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and a professor of history. He is also a director of the Harvard Center for History and Economics. His additional publications include Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930–65 (2006) and Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (co-editor, 2014).
His research is on the trans-regional movement of people, ideas, and institutions, and has focused most recently on the Bay of Bengal as a region connecting South and Southeast Asia. Amrith's areas of particular interest include the history of migration, environmental history, and the history of public health. He is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and received the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities.
Sunil Amrith is a historian exploring migration in South and Southeast Asia and its role in shaping present-day social and cultural dynamics. His focus on migration, rather than political forces such as colonial empires and the formation of modern nations, demonstrates that South Asia (primarily India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (including Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore) are tied by centuries of movement of people and goods around and across the Bay of Bengal.
In Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (2011) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013), Amrith combines the theoretical frameworks of oceanic and environmental history with archival, ethnographic, and visual research to chart how migration transformed individuals, families, and communities. Using narratives and records left by coastal traders, merchants, and migrants, he evokes the lives of ordinary Indians who made homes in new lands across the bay. Amrith's examination of the emergence of diverse, multiethnic coastal communities sheds new light on the social and political consequences of colonization. Colonialism diminished some of the intimate cultural, social, and economic connections among the peoples of coastal areas while enabling new ones. Many bonds finally snapped during decolonization, however, when defining national boundaries and national identity became the priority.
Amrith's analysis of the forces driving migration in Crossing the Bay of Bengal takes into account the ways in which climatic patterns around the bay defined the lives of migrants and coastal residents. He will expand on this work in his current project on the history of environmental change in Asia, focusing particularly on the monsoon in the context of a changing climate. Amrith is leading a reorientation of South and Southeast Asian history and opening new avenues for understanding the region's place in global history.
Amrith's most recent book is Unruly Waters (Basic Books and Penguin UK), a history of the struggle to understand and control water in modern South Asia. His previous book, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Harvard University Press, 2013) was awarded the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History in 2014. He is also the author of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Decolonizing International Health: South and Southeast Asia, 1930-1965 (Palgrave, 2006), as well as articles in journals including the American Historical Review, Past and Present, and Economic and Political Weekly.
Amrith sits on the editorial boards of Modern Asian Studies and is one of the series editors of the Cambr
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
December 27, 2024
Once upon a time all history was environmental history.
That is the first line of this well told audio by the author Sunil Amrith. I would have thought all history is environmental, even that in the making.
The author discussed many events that I have read about in some depth. The Mongol invasions for example, but I had not read discussions previously as to the changing of the land from grazing to crop production. The discussion on the Little Ice age and the possible cause being the conquest of the South American continent by the Spanish I had read about. The discussion on Nipah virus in Malaysia was interesting as it was linked, in terms of propagation, to the Hendra Virus that occurred in Brisbane in the early 2010s. Hendra caused the death of 4 people and 83 horses. Nipah bought on the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs and the deaths of over 100 people. The cause? Flying Fox having to move from their natural environment due to deforestation. As a species, we change our environment at our peril.
Recommended to those with an interest in the subject.
That is the first line of this well told audio by the author Sunil Amrith. I would have thought all history is environmental, even that in the making.
The author discussed many events that I have read about in some depth. The Mongol invasions for example, but I had not read discussions previously as to the changing of the land from grazing to crop production. The discussion on the Little Ice age and the possible cause being the conquest of the South American continent by the Spanish I had read about. The discussion on Nipah virus in Malaysia was interesting as it was linked, in terms of propagation, to the Hendra Virus that occurred in Brisbane in the early 2010s. Hendra caused the death of 4 people and 83 horses. Nipah bought on the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs and the deaths of over 100 people. The cause? Flying Fox having to move from their natural environment due to deforestation. As a species, we change our environment at our peril.
Recommended to those with an interest in the subject.
November 22, 2024
This a very informative history of how the exploitation of the earth mineral and fossil resources that power our technological innovations, have become a multiplier of brutality in class and race segregation, war, and ever increasing greed to exploit people and the land by a self-selected few. In the later chapters the author deals with the ever increasing cost we are paying for in global warming and pollution.
Read
February 12, 2025if you're reading this book, put it down and read Degrowth by Jason Hickel instead. the more i have thought/talked about this book, the more I have realized how spineless and unhelpful it is. I feel like it does a good job putting together a historical narrative but a leaves the reader with no real understanding of WHY everything is so fucked up and its chapter about "solutions" is a laughably short chapter about video games and Kpop fans and Optimism without saying directly the real problem with our world which is CAPITALISM. he sort of hint hint wink winks at it but its not enough. I kind of ended this book being like "man, i guess people fucking suck and we should all die or something." his whole thesis is that growth (and therefore planetary destruction) and freedom are inextricable but they aren't. capitalism just makes us feel that way. the only people whose freedom is threatened by the end of capitalism/degrowth are the rich and powerful's. literally we would all be way more "free" and happy if we had a society that spread resources fairly. so i have no idea, for a story that centers the global south and the colonized so much, why he shies away from pointing this out. and if he was trying to say all of this but I just missed it, then it needs to be a lot more fucking obvious to the reader what your point of view is. the stakes are too high right now.
August 23, 2024
Only after reading a book like Amrith’s does it become clear that all histories can be written as at least in part environmental histories.
December 21, 2024
It’s a downer, no doubt, and the few pages at the end intended to provide a more positive conclusion fail. But I can’t imagine anyone picking up the book not knowing all of that going in. It belongs to that genre of masochistic climate change porn that die hard environmentalists have thrived on —when it provided facts to try to reverse the human course of self destruction. Now that we have crossed several tipping points, books like this merely catalogue our failings and add to the anxiety that comes with caring about what we have lost and knowing it didn’t need to be like this.
June 14, 2026
I had very much liked the author's "Unruly waters" , his history of how water shaped the history of the Indian subcontinent. This book is much more ambitious: it aims to provide a world history of the interaction between humanity and the environment. And while the writing is engaging, and the book contains tonloads of facts that are interesting in their own right, it falls flat on its face when it comes to the grander ambition. After having finished the book, I am at pains to explain what the author's overarching point is. There is no analytical framework to tackle policy dilemmas, and the closer the book gets to our current era, the more it becomes a hodgepodge of anecdotes. Don't expect to gain any deep insights into the great sustainability issues of our days (the chapters on medieval China are very interesting, though).
February 6, 2026
“Once upon a time, all history was environmental history. It still is. The struggle ahead is to remember and to integrate our creatureliness into new visions of human flourishing on Earth. Only then can we regain our freedom.”
May 2, 2025
I assigned Amrith's book in my introductory economic history course, which generally has a good mix of students from many disciplines, from business administration to engineering to occupational therapy. The students' response was very positive, and it is easily my favorite book that I have assigned for this class, both in terms of how well I felt it did the job I wanted it to do (cover global economic history from a less-Eurocentric perspective) as well as how much I myself learned from it and appreciated the examples it drew from. Amrith is an elegant writer and is masterful at moving across the globe swiftly to make clear and compelling connections between economic, military, and ecological events.
June 26, 2025
One can summarize this book with a phrase: "We're cooked." Sunil Amrith explores how historically the human ambition simply disregarded the health of rivers, the viability of forests, and the suffering of animals in order to advance its own interests. This was a good piece of environmental history. Amrith splits the book in three parts starting with human development in 1200s and ending it with the situation we find ourselves in 2025. The author presents different ways humans attempted to free themselves from the constraints of nature and the tools they created in order to tame it. Overall, this was an interesting survey of the role human needs and desires played in the gradual destruction of Earth.
October 22, 2024
I reviewed this book for Undark magazine.
https://undark.org/2024/10/18/book-re...
https://undark.org/2024/10/18/book-re...
January 10, 2025
Powerful, objective and frightening. Really ambitious in its scope and tells the story so well. Much more accessible and digestible than something like Frankopan which makes it all the more important.
November 28, 2025
A really thorough overview of how greed and inequality underpins the climate crisis. Very depressing and a bit 'dry' in parts but very important nonetheless. My favourite chapters were the final ones (17-20) which really put climate destruction into our current context.
June 23, 2025
I was really impressed by the ambition and scope of this as a synoptic narrative, and its judicious selection of particularly illustrative episodes and geographies. The author’s expertise in south Asian history and migrancy brought refreshing perspectives, as did his focus on war and environment. The prose and narrative style were very polished.
The emphasis of the chronology probably understandably skewed towards later modernity, but as a result I thought the engagement with medieval and early modern periods was a little rushed - especially as the later end of the chronology felt more familiar to me (and I imagine to readers generally). Amrith’s articulation of intellectual environmental history was clunkier, but I can the see the difficulty of weaving this into such a broad narrative ultimately focused on demography, economics and resources. The very long, ambitious chronology was incredibly well handled, but as with any narrative of this scale it resulted in quite an opaque argument - and a lacklustre conclusion. I also thought the author’s attention to demography and environmental limits at points strayed into the malthusian logics he elsewhere very effectively critiqued (viewing population as a causative factor in eg resource distribution, rather than a symptom).
All the same, I learned so much from this and hope I will come back to it many times. The author is an incredibly skilled writer as well as a historian, and I found reading this a really valuable experience. It’s hard to encompass just how much this book achieves, and it was refreshing to read environmental literature which so carefully centres justice and decoloniality in its thinking.
The emphasis of the chronology probably understandably skewed towards later modernity, but as a result I thought the engagement with medieval and early modern periods was a little rushed - especially as the later end of the chronology felt more familiar to me (and I imagine to readers generally). Amrith’s articulation of intellectual environmental history was clunkier, but I can the see the difficulty of weaving this into such a broad narrative ultimately focused on demography, economics and resources. The very long, ambitious chronology was incredibly well handled, but as with any narrative of this scale it resulted in quite an opaque argument - and a lacklustre conclusion. I also thought the author’s attention to demography and environmental limits at points strayed into the malthusian logics he elsewhere very effectively critiqued (viewing population as a causative factor in eg resource distribution, rather than a symptom).
All the same, I learned so much from this and hope I will come back to it many times. The author is an incredibly skilled writer as well as a historian, and I found reading this a really valuable experience. It’s hard to encompass just how much this book achieves, and it was refreshing to read environmental literature which so carefully centres justice and decoloniality in its thinking.
December 27, 2024
This eloquent and thoughtful work of non-fiction takes on an ecological lens to examine the history of the last 500 years. The author samples from examples from a variety of time periods and geographic locations to explain how agriculture, trade, industry, and population growth have harmed the planet and its inhabitants.
Like other readers, I appreciated how much Amrith focused on how these issues tend to disproportionately harm the poorest members of society, from the international to the individual scale. I thought his writing was thorough and descriptive without being pedantic or over the top.
While I enjoyed many of the individual anecdotes in this book, I found it a bit incoherent and scattered. I think some additional distillation around a central purpose could have helped this book feel more complete.
Like other readers, I appreciated how much Amrith focused on how these issues tend to disproportionately harm the poorest members of society, from the international to the individual scale. I thought his writing was thorough and descriptive without being pedantic or over the top.
While I enjoyed many of the individual anecdotes in this book, I found it a bit incoherent and scattered. I think some additional distillation around a central purpose could have helped this book feel more complete.
January 9, 2025
Very interesting history of the intertwined relationship between nature and humans, specifically focusing on ecological exploitation. Politics, power, and greed all contribute throughout history in the brutality of those who are vulnerable, poor, or disenfranchised. While this book at points seems scattered and a bit disorganized, I can't fault the author. How could you summarize the history of the earth and it's major ecological impacts without it being a bit disorganized? Amrith does an excellent job with hundreds of sources and references to back his claims, statistics, and facts. Overall a super compelling and fun read!
February 3, 2025
Well-written, winding tales of environmental tomfoolery over the last 500+ years. Pulled out lots of fantastic quotes and am reconvinced that history rhymes. I have a new perspective on 3rd world development because of this book.
July 29, 2025
The Burning Earth - A History.
A fairly easy read (though a distinct style that I had to adapt to). A fascinating history of the ongoing desecration of the earth from the earliest agricultural, cultural migrations, deforestation, wars, industrial chemicals and more wars and then pesticides etc... good historical info, told well. I like that it is global in nature and really covers more of India, Asia, Africa and South America than we normally expect in our western perspective.
What I enjoyed about this book, like any good history is shifting of my mindset. I think many of us have the perspective that our world’s Going to hell in a hand basket (GtHiaHB) is a recent thing, maybe primarily since WW2, or at most since the Industrial Revolution and the oil pulse (and it is, primarily). Yet this book reveals, to my new insight, how much all of past civilization has dramatically transformed the ecosystems of the planet, well before the Industrial Revolution.
Supported by a belief that either by right or hubris, man has the power to control and conquer nature for our needs and wants. Man’s pursuit of wealth and power has depended on the remolding of nature and the environment. We have waged a continual war on nature.
“The degradation and sacrifice of nature is the necessary price of human freedom and want.”
These age old ideals have become synonymous with the pervasive essence of war. A people’s success in war has been the control over land its produce and resources.
And yet while we have come of age to an awareness of our hubris, we continue the battle on new ground in securing control of land and rights to rare earth metals and minerals.
With our modern enthusiasm and techno optimism that we can continue to solve our problems with more investment in the hubris of our control over nature, I take away a skeptical view that our climate and geo-engineering solutions still stare down the barrel of Nature. We are not very good at considering unintended, downstream consequences.
The book ends with the more recent history of environmental movements, the rise of environmental and social justice movements and the ongoing war against environmentalists waged by big energy interests.
Finally closes with some words of guidance in hope of any future positive outcomes:
Words from India Gandhi, “efforts at environmental protection will simply fail if they proceed in isolation from social justice”
(and yet, I am fond of the quote - “there is no justice on a dead planet”… that this book shared in a revamped quote, “there is no K-pop on a dead planet”)
We need to give a voice to nature in human decision making.
We need to repair the human relationship with the rest of nature.
There can be no victory in a war against nature.
And louder, for the back of the room, “ecological destruction undermines the support systems that sustain the only habitable planet.”
A fairly easy read (though a distinct style that I had to adapt to). A fascinating history of the ongoing desecration of the earth from the earliest agricultural, cultural migrations, deforestation, wars, industrial chemicals and more wars and then pesticides etc... good historical info, told well. I like that it is global in nature and really covers more of India, Asia, Africa and South America than we normally expect in our western perspective.
What I enjoyed about this book, like any good history is shifting of my mindset. I think many of us have the perspective that our world’s Going to hell in a hand basket (GtHiaHB) is a recent thing, maybe primarily since WW2, or at most since the Industrial Revolution and the oil pulse (and it is, primarily). Yet this book reveals, to my new insight, how much all of past civilization has dramatically transformed the ecosystems of the planet, well before the Industrial Revolution.
Supported by a belief that either by right or hubris, man has the power to control and conquer nature for our needs and wants. Man’s pursuit of wealth and power has depended on the remolding of nature and the environment. We have waged a continual war on nature.
“The degradation and sacrifice of nature is the necessary price of human freedom and want.”
These age old ideals have become synonymous with the pervasive essence of war. A people’s success in war has been the control over land its produce and resources.
And yet while we have come of age to an awareness of our hubris, we continue the battle on new ground in securing control of land and rights to rare earth metals and minerals.
With our modern enthusiasm and techno optimism that we can continue to solve our problems with more investment in the hubris of our control over nature, I take away a skeptical view that our climate and geo-engineering solutions still stare down the barrel of Nature. We are not very good at considering unintended, downstream consequences.
The book ends with the more recent history of environmental movements, the rise of environmental and social justice movements and the ongoing war against environmentalists waged by big energy interests.
Finally closes with some words of guidance in hope of any future positive outcomes:
Words from India Gandhi, “efforts at environmental protection will simply fail if they proceed in isolation from social justice”
(and yet, I am fond of the quote - “there is no justice on a dead planet”… that this book shared in a revamped quote, “there is no K-pop on a dead planet”)
We need to give a voice to nature in human decision making.
We need to repair the human relationship with the rest of nature.
There can be no victory in a war against nature.
And louder, for the back of the room, “ecological destruction undermines the support systems that sustain the only habitable planet.”
March 6, 2026
Reading The Burning Earth doesn't exactly paint a positive picture of humanity. The author explores the various ways in which we have ravaged nature and enslaved both fellow human beings and animals. We—and particularly Western elites—seem to have a tendency to destroy much of what we touch in the pursuit of profit and "progress."
However, the book also meritously highlights those who have tried, and sometimes succeeded, in reversing the tide when things have gone wrong. One example is the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer and the subsequent global agreements that enabled the preservation of the ozone layer. Another hopeful example is the first UN environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972, where Prime Minister Olof Palme and India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi played pivotal roles. Sadly, it feels like a distant era when Sweden hosted major summits to collectively chart a course toward sustainable development. The book also introduces us to inspiring environmental activists, primarily from the Global South, such as Brazil's Chico Mendes, who was tragically murdered in 1988 for his cause.
What occasionally gives me hope is viewing humanity as a child that has yet to mature—one that reacts thoughtlessly to the next stimulus. Hope lies in the possibility that we will mature and realize that by treating ourselves and our world with greater care, we create significantly better conditions for many more people to live good lives. This also involves finding better "systems" than today’s predatory capitalism, senseless wars, and massive exploitation of animals. Should we succeed, this book could one day be read as a history of humanity’s early development—an era that almost spelled our end, but which we, against all odds, managed to survive after all.
However, the book also meritously highlights those who have tried, and sometimes succeeded, in reversing the tide when things have gone wrong. One example is the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer and the subsequent global agreements that enabled the preservation of the ozone layer. Another hopeful example is the first UN environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972, where Prime Minister Olof Palme and India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi played pivotal roles. Sadly, it feels like a distant era when Sweden hosted major summits to collectively chart a course toward sustainable development. The book also introduces us to inspiring environmental activists, primarily from the Global South, such as Brazil's Chico Mendes, who was tragically murdered in 1988 for his cause.
What occasionally gives me hope is viewing humanity as a child that has yet to mature—one that reacts thoughtlessly to the next stimulus. Hope lies in the possibility that we will mature and realize that by treating ourselves and our world with greater care, we create significantly better conditions for many more people to live good lives. This also involves finding better "systems" than today’s predatory capitalism, senseless wars, and massive exploitation of animals. Should we succeed, this book could one day be read as a history of humanity’s early development—an era that almost spelled our end, but which we, against all odds, managed to survive after all.
July 29, 2025
"In the beginning, all history was environmental history."
This book is a complex treatise on the history of humanity's relationship with the environment, and its attempts to transcend the creatureliness that places us within the broad "confines"(as many of the imperialist movements depicted in this book will have you believe) of nature. The book starts from the pre-industrial societies of yore, then moves on to the industrialisation period, dedicating a significant pagecount to this time, and finally goes to speak of the rise of a global environmental consciousness and our attempts to develop a language to speak of the issues, as well as the quest for developing the actual solutions to these issues.
The thesis and core idea that runs through the book and underpins many of the arguments is how violence and cruelty against human communities is deeply and unarguably tied to violence and cruelty against the environment, both coming hand in hand - the forces of exploitation and profit seeking do not discriminate (ironically) in what "resources" are being exploited, stemming from a shortsighted lack of ability to see their intrinsic value beyond the potential for wealth and profits. This core idea is most explicitly expressed in the portion of the book on the industrialised era, drawing from around the world of examples of colonialisation, the Transatlantic slave trade, and indentured labour, although it continues to underpin latter parts as well, such as the evolution of sustainable development and environmental movements.
I appreciate how well researched this book is (more than 30% of this book is dedicated to the citations and index sections, which is just truly next level). Other books on global histories I have read tend to have problems of underrepresentation and omission - "global" only applying to certain regions or countries with many regions left out. This book feels like an antidote in how well it represented different parts of the world, global finally meaning truly global. These were also not disparate examples, as connections are made to other events across time and space, making the narration very cohesive overall.
Fair warning must be provided - this was a very emotionally heavy read, but deeply important.
This book is a complex treatise on the history of humanity's relationship with the environment, and its attempts to transcend the creatureliness that places us within the broad "confines"(as many of the imperialist movements depicted in this book will have you believe) of nature. The book starts from the pre-industrial societies of yore, then moves on to the industrialisation period, dedicating a significant pagecount to this time, and finally goes to speak of the rise of a global environmental consciousness and our attempts to develop a language to speak of the issues, as well as the quest for developing the actual solutions to these issues.
The thesis and core idea that runs through the book and underpins many of the arguments is how violence and cruelty against human communities is deeply and unarguably tied to violence and cruelty against the environment, both coming hand in hand - the forces of exploitation and profit seeking do not discriminate (ironically) in what "resources" are being exploited, stemming from a shortsighted lack of ability to see their intrinsic value beyond the potential for wealth and profits. This core idea is most explicitly expressed in the portion of the book on the industrialised era, drawing from around the world of examples of colonialisation, the Transatlantic slave trade, and indentured labour, although it continues to underpin latter parts as well, such as the evolution of sustainable development and environmental movements.
I appreciate how well researched this book is (more than 30% of this book is dedicated to the citations and index sections, which is just truly next level). Other books on global histories I have read tend to have problems of underrepresentation and omission - "global" only applying to certain regions or countries with many regions left out. This book feels like an antidote in how well it represented different parts of the world, global finally meaning truly global. These were also not disparate examples, as connections are made to other events across time and space, making the narration very cohesive overall.
Fair warning must be provided - this was a very emotionally heavy read, but deeply important.
December 29, 2024
Ik wil dit een beter boek vinden, maar Amrith probeert gewoon te veel te doen in 1 boek. Een geschiedenis van hoe de mensheid het milieu beïnvloed sinds het jaar 1000 over de hele wereld, van vervuiling tot ontbossing tot klimaatverandering. En dan ook nog eens de impact die het milieu/weer/klimaat impact heeft op de menselijke geschiedenis. En dan ook nog eens een soort van geschiedenis van en pleidooi over environmentalism. Dat allemaal op 350 pagina's leidt helaas tot een vrij oppervlakkig boek. Er zitten echt toffe stukken in. Amrith kan goed schrijven, zeker de historische beschrijvingen van bijvoorbeeld mijnbouw begin twintigste eeuw of de oliestad Baku waren erg goed. Er zaten ook af en toe wel leuke nieuwe feitjes tussen. Maar al met al, ondanks hoe goed de boodschap ook is, kwam ik nooit echt helemaal into het boek.
October 22, 2025
some great points but gets overshadowed by pure bulk of the book. Last 100 pages were actually engaging and interesting for the most part. I did appreciate the all-encompassing perspective of environmental history which you don't see often. And a little bit of climate optimism as well was refreshing.
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January 16, 2025mughal empire mentioned
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July 16, 2025my reading habits can basically be described as always having 1 non-fiction audiobook, and 10 fiction ebooks at any given time
March 5, 2026
Read my interview with the author here!
https://pghrev.com/sunil-amrith-on-en...
https://pghrev.com/sunil-amrith-on-en...
Read
April 10, 2026This author citing Princess Mononoke is taking me out
Read for HIST 7030: Issues & Interpretations in World History
Read for HIST 7030: Issues & Interpretations in World History
Did Not Finish
May 14, 2026I found this book difficult to follow -- it's all over the place with no strong, coherent backbone to hold it together.
June 29, 2026
The Burning Earth:
An Environmental History of the last 500 years
Sunil Amrith
______________________________________________
In most histories political and economic aspects get highlighted. These are projected as the change agents of history. The societal and environmental support systems generally remain the victims that face the most disruptive change. In The Burning Earth the author presents this aspect up-front and in detail. In fact, the main theme in the book is to consider the four features: politics, economics, society and the ecology simultaneously with the latter two, leading. This the story of socio-economic inequality, mass scale human and animal deaths, forced migration and permanent ecological damage perpetrated by human ‘progress’. The story details the last five hundred years of tumultuous change from the Mongol and Spanish wars of conquest to the European Plague pestilence, profits from slavery and pillage, to the end of the Second World War. This brief period of history is countered by the book’s transcontinental canvas stretching from Sakhalin to South America; China, South and South East Asia. Without openly judging from hindsight, on every moving page the author seems to continuously question the need to have destroyed so much biotic and abiotic elements that have built our home grain by grain, rock by rock gradually over millions of years. This period also saw heightened growth in trade, change in commercial and agricultural practices peaking in industrial urbanisation, commercial agriculture, exploitative mercantilism and colonialism.
Amrith makes a few astute observations that stand out prominently. He links war and trade to the spread of disease. That wars caused large-scale migration of the uprooted population, animals and with them pathogens across ecological zones. He notes that transcontinental trade also led to transfer of pests like rodents in ships and Russian Sable furs carrying the plague bacterium to Europe. The Nipah virus was carried by fruit flies having lost their way in smog created by massive forest fires meant to clear land for Palm growing in Indonesia. After the Mongol conquests of Eurasia, new technologies in gunpower and shipping with state support encouraged large-scale marauding European seafarers to lay waste wherever they made landfall. The details of cruelty of slaves and indentured labour in the Sugar belts of the Caribbean, the mines of Peru and South Africa, in the deaths of horses in the First World War and in the genocidal concentration camps of the Nazis, highlighted another one of Amrith’s nuanced findings. Cruelty and violence against living species seem to have transferred on to defenceless flora, fauna and forest dependent communities. A case in point is Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s colleague killing an adult Orangutan slowly and cruelly, for fun. He also quotes Rudyard Kipling’s praise of guns and racist admiration of the killing of Africans and Asians by the British. The immense Amazonian clearances of pristine bio diversity for growing cattle fodder, rubber plantations, building roads contributed to this perverted justification of bringing about a change from somnolence to progress. Relatedly, a common thread running across continents and peoples was the separation of the haves and have-nots. The perpetrators of ecological damage, conquerers, investors and their victims enslaved or ejected from their ecological livelihoods created a natural progression towards increasing social inequality.
Though an urbanite since childhood, Amrith does not seem to like that the island state reclaimed land from the sea to extend the urban sprawl. Most would think that was sheer need for the small island state to create necessary housing and urban green zones! He mentions the instances of almost ‘vindictive’ flooding in response to paved urban areas in Mumbai, Yangon and loss of Mangrove cover in Bangkok. His strong sense of environmental justice is seen in relating the use of Eyres in Thirteenth century England to adjudicate in disputes between common use of forest produce and forest access in areas arbitrarily fenced in by estate owners.
Amrith touches on critical tipping-point issues which indicate a need for further investigations. Cross effects of developmental triggers is one issue. He considers ecological resources in its totality, living and non-living. Placing the human being at the centre, the disturbance of one ecological element has a progressive effect on the others and ultimately on humans and animals. For example mining leads directly to land subsidence, structural dislocation of rock and soil, mercury and cyanide contamination and air pollution. It has indirect effects on the health of miners, nearby residents and perpetrates cruelty and inequality. Similarly, deforestation, fossil fuel use, and what he terms the technosphere of industrial-urban infrastructure could devastate bio diversity and take away Nature’s resilience leading to species extinction and spread of disease. Indirect effects can be far- reaching like communities displaced by upstream dams creating downstream water pollution, sedimentation, water scarcity and landslides. A new fillip in migration by climate refugees is a global phenomenon leading to expanding urban sprawl and slums. Another tipping point perspective is on slowing species thermophilisation or floral and faunal species failing to adjust against faster climate change. In the same vein, mammalian species in the sea and land would seek cooler regions in the North due to warming average sea temperatures. Where would the polar bears and the Inuit tribe go without sea ice?
Second, He feels that true human freedom comes from a healthy planet. This is a tad idealistic as freedom cannot be true if it is only for a few equals. Human freedom requires total equality which has never been achieved and is unlikely in the future. Similarly, most of our burning earth cannot re-generate with carbon emissions affecting climate, non-bio degradable wastes contaminating the ocean floors and waste dumps and the ‘technosphere mass’ of trillions of tonnes of fertilised, toxic land and industrial-urban infrastructure of modernity the Twentieth century has created, standing in the way of ecological regeneration, threatening ecologically dependent communities and hence equal freedom for all humans. With progress as we know it, human freedom seems only for the rich and privileged, not the ecological victims. The poverty and inequality factors with their relatedness to environmental destruction was flagged by India’s Prime Minister in the Stockholm conference and is quoted by the author more as a warning, than a lament.
Thirdly, the author positions his philosophy within the thought-frame of scholars like Hannah Arendt and Rachel Carson. They have warned against human alienation from life supporting nature. That by controlling nature as a mere resource base we will eliminate all life on Earth. No matter the bravado of the nineteenth century in thinking that humans have conquered nature, we cannot replace our habitat holistically with mere DNA or genetic manipulation. As we can see in Climatic behaviour already, nature has to be lived with and not against. And Human footprint calculations of the UN have shown that under Business-as-usual conditions, 1.6 to 1.8 earths are required to sustain mankind today. We do not know about tomorrow.
The author indicts top-down Government and Commercial leadership as partners being largely responsible for the environmental devastation of the Earth especially in the last three hundred years. Legal and political cover for the practical use of innovative technologies like steam power and railways, fossil fuel based fertiliser use in industrial-agriculture, transportation, weaponry and war for territorial expansion, conquests and plundering of distant peoples for luxuries and of course clearing land for settlement, all owed to this partnership. This continuing partnership today seems an inevitable component of capitalism. It is necessary to provide legal protection for private investors and ensure safe returns of profit. Free goods and services like natural resources and slave labour do not enter this equation. The author’s indictment stretches to the overall condemnation of the Western developed countries who have been responsible for their own environmental destruction and that of the developing countries.
Conversely, Amrith extolls the virtuous bottom-up leadership of the Chipko movement in India against deforestation, Wangari Mathai’s green belt programme in Kenya and the people-based movement for freeing bonded labour among Amazonian rubber tappers of Chico Mendez. The lethal partnership of Government and Oil industry which successfully conspired to kill Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria who had wide international civil society support for his peoples’ movement against oil contamination of the drilled areas of the Niger Delta. These leaders were fighting with tremendous international support for the communities’ marginalised by the commercial interests of Shell oil, Brazilian beef and rubber exporters, sugar magnates etc. who were primarily responsible for the devastation of the Niger basin, the Amazon rain forests, Madeira island and the Carribean. The author pays homage to these brave souls who created a groundswell of peaceful civil society movements throughout the world spreading the truth about the causes and long term effects of our burning earth.
In a plethora of problems the liminal of solutions has always been distributed and tentative. Amrith discusses the standard large-scale interventions of silver iodide cloud seeding, solar engineering, massive renewable energy thrusts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, carbon capture and storage and the like. These tech solutions are slow to scale up, expensive and will have limitations in universal use especially where they cannot be paid for. He lists the various international agreements and protocols and the partial success of conferences under the aegis of the United Nations. Partial because none of these agreements were legally binding or could be enforced. There is no effective institutional or networking mechanism to enforce countries to adhere to commitments. He notes that except for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and to some extent the Climate Agreement of 2015, international cooperation in achieving targets, reparations and compensation for losses and damage remain a blame-game by the West against mainly China and India who have high absolute carbon emission outputs. The West cannot deny their historical responsibility in having devastated the Earth, but seem hedging to compensate the developing and emerging nations and help them to grow green. The author pushes for the incremental scaling up of micro movements in places that have shown locally relevant success like the mangrove plantations in Indonesia, East coast of India, the integrated electric public transportation system in Bogota (Colombia), legal empowerment of Environmental resources in New Zealand and Colombia. These incremental micro steps have to be scaled up and sustained locally and beyond. They would need continuous funding like health aid. In this case health of the Earth.
The author could have discussed the very important set of twenty Aichi targets of 2010 (Nagoya), agreed on by 190 countries which is the most comprehensive action plan for preserving, regenerating and protecting bio-diversity in the World, in all its myriad geographies. This is a miss considering how much value Amrith has attached to Bio-diversity loss. Another miss is that in its transcontinental analysis ‘The Burning Earth’ skips the continent of Australia and the Pacific islands in general. Perhaps because in the period under review the climate crisis, pollution and sea level rise were not yet grave concerns in these parts. But after the colonial incursions into Eastern and South-Eastern Australia in 1788, there was mass scale devastation of indigenous culture. During the colonial era, Australia (mainly the South East and Tasmania) lost nearly 40% of its total forest cover. Indigenous land management like structured landscaping, controlled low intensity fires (fire stick farming) to prevent wild fires and preserve bio diversity were replaced by mono culture and livestock industries. Australia also carried the toxic legacy of colonial gold mining and its related deforestation, heavy metal contamination and land degradation.
It was a blurred vision of elitist need and greed that propelled the march of the industrial revolution and colonial exploitative trade. These commercial interests in partnership with the Governments of the day wrote the economic histories of the last three hundred years. We carry the legacies of these times, such that today, the two histories, economic and environmental are inversely related. A broad spectrum solution lies not in going back to the Sixteenth century but in using our tremendous scientific knowledge to device ways both at micro and macro levels that can both enhance natural performance and make life on earth compatible with nature. That would be really controlling nature not as resource base to exploit but as a partner for life.
An Environmental History of the last 500 years
Sunil Amrith
______________________________________________
In most histories political and economic aspects get highlighted. These are projected as the change agents of history. The societal and environmental support systems generally remain the victims that face the most disruptive change. In The Burning Earth the author presents this aspect up-front and in detail. In fact, the main theme in the book is to consider the four features: politics, economics, society and the ecology simultaneously with the latter two, leading. This the story of socio-economic inequality, mass scale human and animal deaths, forced migration and permanent ecological damage perpetrated by human ‘progress’. The story details the last five hundred years of tumultuous change from the Mongol and Spanish wars of conquest to the European Plague pestilence, profits from slavery and pillage, to the end of the Second World War. This brief period of history is countered by the book’s transcontinental canvas stretching from Sakhalin to South America; China, South and South East Asia. Without openly judging from hindsight, on every moving page the author seems to continuously question the need to have destroyed so much biotic and abiotic elements that have built our home grain by grain, rock by rock gradually over millions of years. This period also saw heightened growth in trade, change in commercial and agricultural practices peaking in industrial urbanisation, commercial agriculture, exploitative mercantilism and colonialism.
Amrith makes a few astute observations that stand out prominently. He links war and trade to the spread of disease. That wars caused large-scale migration of the uprooted population, animals and with them pathogens across ecological zones. He notes that transcontinental trade also led to transfer of pests like rodents in ships and Russian Sable furs carrying the plague bacterium to Europe. The Nipah virus was carried by fruit flies having lost their way in smog created by massive forest fires meant to clear land for Palm growing in Indonesia. After the Mongol conquests of Eurasia, new technologies in gunpower and shipping with state support encouraged large-scale marauding European seafarers to lay waste wherever they made landfall. The details of cruelty of slaves and indentured labour in the Sugar belts of the Caribbean, the mines of Peru and South Africa, in the deaths of horses in the First World War and in the genocidal concentration camps of the Nazis, highlighted another one of Amrith’s nuanced findings. Cruelty and violence against living species seem to have transferred on to defenceless flora, fauna and forest dependent communities. A case in point is Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s colleague killing an adult Orangutan slowly and cruelly, for fun. He also quotes Rudyard Kipling’s praise of guns and racist admiration of the killing of Africans and Asians by the British. The immense Amazonian clearances of pristine bio diversity for growing cattle fodder, rubber plantations, building roads contributed to this perverted justification of bringing about a change from somnolence to progress. Relatedly, a common thread running across continents and peoples was the separation of the haves and have-nots. The perpetrators of ecological damage, conquerers, investors and their victims enslaved or ejected from their ecological livelihoods created a natural progression towards increasing social inequality.
Though an urbanite since childhood, Amrith does not seem to like that the island state reclaimed land from the sea to extend the urban sprawl. Most would think that was sheer need for the small island state to create necessary housing and urban green zones! He mentions the instances of almost ‘vindictive’ flooding in response to paved urban areas in Mumbai, Yangon and loss of Mangrove cover in Bangkok. His strong sense of environmental justice is seen in relating the use of Eyres in Thirteenth century England to adjudicate in disputes between common use of forest produce and forest access in areas arbitrarily fenced in by estate owners.
Amrith touches on critical tipping-point issues which indicate a need for further investigations. Cross effects of developmental triggers is one issue. He considers ecological resources in its totality, living and non-living. Placing the human being at the centre, the disturbance of one ecological element has a progressive effect on the others and ultimately on humans and animals. For example mining leads directly to land subsidence, structural dislocation of rock and soil, mercury and cyanide contamination and air pollution. It has indirect effects on the health of miners, nearby residents and perpetrates cruelty and inequality. Similarly, deforestation, fossil fuel use, and what he terms the technosphere of industrial-urban infrastructure could devastate bio diversity and take away Nature’s resilience leading to species extinction and spread of disease. Indirect effects can be far- reaching like communities displaced by upstream dams creating downstream water pollution, sedimentation, water scarcity and landslides. A new fillip in migration by climate refugees is a global phenomenon leading to expanding urban sprawl and slums. Another tipping point perspective is on slowing species thermophilisation or floral and faunal species failing to adjust against faster climate change. In the same vein, mammalian species in the sea and land would seek cooler regions in the North due to warming average sea temperatures. Where would the polar bears and the Inuit tribe go without sea ice?
Second, He feels that true human freedom comes from a healthy planet. This is a tad idealistic as freedom cannot be true if it is only for a few equals. Human freedom requires total equality which has never been achieved and is unlikely in the future. Similarly, most of our burning earth cannot re-generate with carbon emissions affecting climate, non-bio degradable wastes contaminating the ocean floors and waste dumps and the ‘technosphere mass’ of trillions of tonnes of fertilised, toxic land and industrial-urban infrastructure of modernity the Twentieth century has created, standing in the way of ecological regeneration, threatening ecologically dependent communities and hence equal freedom for all humans. With progress as we know it, human freedom seems only for the rich and privileged, not the ecological victims. The poverty and inequality factors with their relatedness to environmental destruction was flagged by India’s Prime Minister in the Stockholm conference and is quoted by the author more as a warning, than a lament.
Thirdly, the author positions his philosophy within the thought-frame of scholars like Hannah Arendt and Rachel Carson. They have warned against human alienation from life supporting nature. That by controlling nature as a mere resource base we will eliminate all life on Earth. No matter the bravado of the nineteenth century in thinking that humans have conquered nature, we cannot replace our habitat holistically with mere DNA or genetic manipulation. As we can see in Climatic behaviour already, nature has to be lived with and not against. And Human footprint calculations of the UN have shown that under Business-as-usual conditions, 1.6 to 1.8 earths are required to sustain mankind today. We do not know about tomorrow.
The author indicts top-down Government and Commercial leadership as partners being largely responsible for the environmental devastation of the Earth especially in the last three hundred years. Legal and political cover for the practical use of innovative technologies like steam power and railways, fossil fuel based fertiliser use in industrial-agriculture, transportation, weaponry and war for territorial expansion, conquests and plundering of distant peoples for luxuries and of course clearing land for settlement, all owed to this partnership. This continuing partnership today seems an inevitable component of capitalism. It is necessary to provide legal protection for private investors and ensure safe returns of profit. Free goods and services like natural resources and slave labour do not enter this equation. The author’s indictment stretches to the overall condemnation of the Western developed countries who have been responsible for their own environmental destruction and that of the developing countries.
Conversely, Amrith extolls the virtuous bottom-up leadership of the Chipko movement in India against deforestation, Wangari Mathai’s green belt programme in Kenya and the people-based movement for freeing bonded labour among Amazonian rubber tappers of Chico Mendez. The lethal partnership of Government and Oil industry which successfully conspired to kill Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria who had wide international civil society support for his peoples’ movement against oil contamination of the drilled areas of the Niger Delta. These leaders were fighting with tremendous international support for the communities’ marginalised by the commercial interests of Shell oil, Brazilian beef and rubber exporters, sugar magnates etc. who were primarily responsible for the devastation of the Niger basin, the Amazon rain forests, Madeira island and the Carribean. The author pays homage to these brave souls who created a groundswell of peaceful civil society movements throughout the world spreading the truth about the causes and long term effects of our burning earth.
In a plethora of problems the liminal of solutions has always been distributed and tentative. Amrith discusses the standard large-scale interventions of silver iodide cloud seeding, solar engineering, massive renewable energy thrusts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, carbon capture and storage and the like. These tech solutions are slow to scale up, expensive and will have limitations in universal use especially where they cannot be paid for. He lists the various international agreements and protocols and the partial success of conferences under the aegis of the United Nations. Partial because none of these agreements were legally binding or could be enforced. There is no effective institutional or networking mechanism to enforce countries to adhere to commitments. He notes that except for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and to some extent the Climate Agreement of 2015, international cooperation in achieving targets, reparations and compensation for losses and damage remain a blame-game by the West against mainly China and India who have high absolute carbon emission outputs. The West cannot deny their historical responsibility in having devastated the Earth, but seem hedging to compensate the developing and emerging nations and help them to grow green. The author pushes for the incremental scaling up of micro movements in places that have shown locally relevant success like the mangrove plantations in Indonesia, East coast of India, the integrated electric public transportation system in Bogota (Colombia), legal empowerment of Environmental resources in New Zealand and Colombia. These incremental micro steps have to be scaled up and sustained locally and beyond. They would need continuous funding like health aid. In this case health of the Earth.
The author could have discussed the very important set of twenty Aichi targets of 2010 (Nagoya), agreed on by 190 countries which is the most comprehensive action plan for preserving, regenerating and protecting bio-diversity in the World, in all its myriad geographies. This is a miss considering how much value Amrith has attached to Bio-diversity loss. Another miss is that in its transcontinental analysis ‘The Burning Earth’ skips the continent of Australia and the Pacific islands in general. Perhaps because in the period under review the climate crisis, pollution and sea level rise were not yet grave concerns in these parts. But after the colonial incursions into Eastern and South-Eastern Australia in 1788, there was mass scale devastation of indigenous culture. During the colonial era, Australia (mainly the South East and Tasmania) lost nearly 40% of its total forest cover. Indigenous land management like structured landscaping, controlled low intensity fires (fire stick farming) to prevent wild fires and preserve bio diversity were replaced by mono culture and livestock industries. Australia also carried the toxic legacy of colonial gold mining and its related deforestation, heavy metal contamination and land degradation.
It was a blurred vision of elitist need and greed that propelled the march of the industrial revolution and colonial exploitative trade. These commercial interests in partnership with the Governments of the day wrote the economic histories of the last three hundred years. We carry the legacies of these times, such that today, the two histories, economic and environmental are inversely related. A broad spectrum solution lies not in going back to the Sixteenth century but in using our tremendous scientific knowledge to device ways both at micro and macro levels that can both enhance natural performance and make life on earth compatible with nature. That would be really controlling nature not as resource base to exploit but as a partner for life.
November 8, 2024
5 sterren , bij momenten was het stil in mijn hoofd bij deze nieuwe informatie en andere kijk op geschiedenis gebeurtenissen , er komt veel in voor ( nieuwe informatie/inzichten waar mijn nieuwsgierig brein blij mee is ). , bv over het nipahvirus , kolonisatie geschiedenis van Siberië, gasaanvallen in eerste wereldoorlog, wat er wordt gevormd met na/fteenzuur en palm/itinezuur , de kwalijke kanten waar wetenschap kan voor gebruikt worden , wat bracero is , vooral ook een geschiedenis van de meer naamlozen ( slachtoffers ) in plaats van de geschiedenis van leiders , …. De meeste lezers zijn waarschijnlijk meer geïnteresseerd in de geschiedenis van leiders , ( bij momenten ik ook ) toch ligt de grond bezaaid met botten en as van naamlozen die gezorgd hebben voor de al dan niet weelderigheid van vandaag de dag , het zijn ook de naamlozen die er nu voor zorgen ,
5 sterren een boek voor mensen die eens een andere kijk op de geschiedenis willen lezen,
5 sterren een boek voor mensen die eens een andere kijk op de geschiedenis willen lezen,
December 13, 2024
I was expecting a little more from a book that made so many Top 10 of 2024 lists. Reading this book was not the profound experience for me as it was for others. Other books dealing with environmental impact/anticomsumption/anticapitalism books (A Poison Like No Other, Uninhabitable Earth, Post Growth Living, The Insect Crisis, The day the world stops shopping) cover much of the same ground and I would recommend some of those before this one.
I do want to highlight somethings that I thought this book does well. For one, I think it really outlines how the ascension of capitalism impacted enslaved people (and subsequently the environment). Other books that I listed often touch on environmental impacts and loss of ways of life for indigenous people, but don't hit the slavery angle quite as well. The book also does a good job of taking a global perspective compared to similar books. It looks at specific instances in specific regions and notes the differences in both impacts and remedies in different nations. It also cogently organizes climate impact for the Global North and Global South better than any other books I have read in this area. Finally, the last chapter of this book is as good as any writing I have read on the topic of environmental impact. That pushes it from 3 stars to 4. Personally, I don't see myself re-reading this book in the future except for that last chapter.
I do want to highlight somethings that I thought this book does well. For one, I think it really outlines how the ascension of capitalism impacted enslaved people (and subsequently the environment). Other books that I listed often touch on environmental impacts and loss of ways of life for indigenous people, but don't hit the slavery angle quite as well. The book also does a good job of taking a global perspective compared to similar books. It looks at specific instances in specific regions and notes the differences in both impacts and remedies in different nations. It also cogently organizes climate impact for the Global North and Global South better than any other books I have read in this area. Finally, the last chapter of this book is as good as any writing I have read on the topic of environmental impact. That pushes it from 3 stars to 4. Personally, I don't see myself re-reading this book in the future except for that last chapter.
July 5, 2025
The Burning Earth by Sunil Amri provides an overview of history from an environmental perspective.
A warm climatic period during the medieval era spurred agricultural expansion across Eurasia, which, in turn, caused a population boom. This growth, coupled with the rise of empires, led to increased trade and the exchange of ideas and technologies. However, natural disasters and the Black Plague later devastated societies and populations.
The 15th century saw European exploration aimed at accessing Asia after the fall of the Mongol Empire and the rise of Muslim kingdoms, which closed overland trade routes. In the newly discovered lands, Europeans decimated indigenous populations through violence and disease while introducing invasive species. They also polluted the Andes through gold and silver mining.
Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Russian, Chinese, and Indian empires expanded, increasing both economic wealth and agricultural output. More wilderness was cleared for cultivation, and fur-bearing animals were hunted to near extinction.
The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to the Americas to exploit what seemed like endless natural resources, initially focusing on sugar production, which was environmentally devastating.
The Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of widespread fossil fuel use, disrupting societies through mass migrations of displaced people and the rampant pollution of air and water. As populations grew, agricultural output expanded, and crops were increasingly exported as part of a global market, leaving farmers at the mercy of fluctuating prices. Animal slaughter occurred on an industrial scale, and colonialism reached its zenith, exacerbating inequality and causing immense suffering among the colonized.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, the advent of new technologies and the entrenchment of a racial caste system facilitated the extraction of gold for British colonizers, financing the growth of the global economy at the turn of the 20th century.
In Baku, the extraction of oil, which was increasingly used as fuel, generated vast wealth, but not for the workers. This inequality fueled radical politics, including for a young Joseph Stalin. But then ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis destroyed the industrial oil infrastructure in 1905.
The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution also contributed to the extreme lethality of World War I, with new weapons such as tanks, airplanes, and more powerful artillery enabling mass killings of both people and animals, while also devastating the environments in which battles were fought.
Fear of ecological limits spurred both Germany and Japan toward imperial expansion as they sought to control natural resources they believed were necessary for their prosperity.
World War II saw mass famines that killed millions across the globe. The scale of destruction—both human and environmental—was unprecedented, culminating in the use of nuclear weapons, which introduced the power to destroy humanity and much of life on Earth.
After the war, newly freed countries, having fought for independence, sought economic development, but often at great cost. The results were catastrophic in some cases, such as the millions who died during China’s Great Leap Forward or those displaced by large dam projects. This postwar period has been referred to as the "Great Acceleration," marked by significant advancements in public health that extended human life, but also by extreme increases in pollution and resource depletion.
In the 1960s and 70s, rising environmental awareness, spurred by figures like Rachel Carson, highlighted the dangers of chemical and other types of pollution, with incidents such as oil spills becoming more common. The agricultural revolution, which drove mass migration from rural areas to cities, was both a contributing factor to a population boom and a source of chemical pollution.
Developed nations pointed to overpopulation as a root cause of these problems, a perspective that was often seen by poorer nations as an accusation that threatened their development while they struggled to catch up economically. Some countries, however, like India and China, responded by implementing population control measures.
Deforestation of tropical rainforests began in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1980s, driven by the conversion of forests into agricultural land for export and by authoritarian regimes installed after U.S.-backed coups.
In the 1980s and 90s, the environmental movement went global. Governments were pressured into action, first with an international agreement to address the ozone hole, and later on other environmental concerns, including proposals to tackle climate change. In response, oil companies launched public relations campaigns to sow doubt about the science of climate change. Environmental activists in developing countries were targeted, and some were even murdered, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria, whom I had advocated for during my college years as the head of the campus Amnesty International group, prior to his execution.
We have already passed several environmental tipping points, and climate change is rapidly approaching others. Addressing this crisis will require action on multiple fronts, incorporating social justice, local context, and historical understanding into any solutions. However, this will be an exceedingly challenging task.
All of history is, in a sense, environmental history because everything we do—and civilization itself—rests upon the foundation of nature and Earth's living ecology.
I was excited about the concept of this book, but in reading it I felt that it was often too general, with some chapters covering hundreds of years in a single sweep. This made it lack depth. While there were intriguing nuggets of information, the narrative lacked cohesion overall.
A warm climatic period during the medieval era spurred agricultural expansion across Eurasia, which, in turn, caused a population boom. This growth, coupled with the rise of empires, led to increased trade and the exchange of ideas and technologies. However, natural disasters and the Black Plague later devastated societies and populations.
The 15th century saw European exploration aimed at accessing Asia after the fall of the Mongol Empire and the rise of Muslim kingdoms, which closed overland trade routes. In the newly discovered lands, Europeans decimated indigenous populations through violence and disease while introducing invasive species. They also polluted the Andes through gold and silver mining.
Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Russian, Chinese, and Indian empires expanded, increasing both economic wealth and agricultural output. More wilderness was cleared for cultivation, and fur-bearing animals were hunted to near extinction.
The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to the Americas to exploit what seemed like endless natural resources, initially focusing on sugar production, which was environmentally devastating.
The Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of widespread fossil fuel use, disrupting societies through mass migrations of displaced people and the rampant pollution of air and water. As populations grew, agricultural output expanded, and crops were increasingly exported as part of a global market, leaving farmers at the mercy of fluctuating prices. Animal slaughter occurred on an industrial scale, and colonialism reached its zenith, exacerbating inequality and causing immense suffering among the colonized.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, the advent of new technologies and the entrenchment of a racial caste system facilitated the extraction of gold for British colonizers, financing the growth of the global economy at the turn of the 20th century.
In Baku, the extraction of oil, which was increasingly used as fuel, generated vast wealth, but not for the workers. This inequality fueled radical politics, including for a young Joseph Stalin. But then ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis destroyed the industrial oil infrastructure in 1905.
The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution also contributed to the extreme lethality of World War I, with new weapons such as tanks, airplanes, and more powerful artillery enabling mass killings of both people and animals, while also devastating the environments in which battles were fought.
Fear of ecological limits spurred both Germany and Japan toward imperial expansion as they sought to control natural resources they believed were necessary for their prosperity.
World War II saw mass famines that killed millions across the globe. The scale of destruction—both human and environmental—was unprecedented, culminating in the use of nuclear weapons, which introduced the power to destroy humanity and much of life on Earth.
After the war, newly freed countries, having fought for independence, sought economic development, but often at great cost. The results were catastrophic in some cases, such as the millions who died during China’s Great Leap Forward or those displaced by large dam projects. This postwar period has been referred to as the "Great Acceleration," marked by significant advancements in public health that extended human life, but also by extreme increases in pollution and resource depletion.
In the 1960s and 70s, rising environmental awareness, spurred by figures like Rachel Carson, highlighted the dangers of chemical and other types of pollution, with incidents such as oil spills becoming more common. The agricultural revolution, which drove mass migration from rural areas to cities, was both a contributing factor to a population boom and a source of chemical pollution.
Developed nations pointed to overpopulation as a root cause of these problems, a perspective that was often seen by poorer nations as an accusation that threatened their development while they struggled to catch up economically. Some countries, however, like India and China, responded by implementing population control measures.
Deforestation of tropical rainforests began in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1980s, driven by the conversion of forests into agricultural land for export and by authoritarian regimes installed after U.S.-backed coups.
In the 1980s and 90s, the environmental movement went global. Governments were pressured into action, first with an international agreement to address the ozone hole, and later on other environmental concerns, including proposals to tackle climate change. In response, oil companies launched public relations campaigns to sow doubt about the science of climate change. Environmental activists in developing countries were targeted, and some were even murdered, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria, whom I had advocated for during my college years as the head of the campus Amnesty International group, prior to his execution.
We have already passed several environmental tipping points, and climate change is rapidly approaching others. Addressing this crisis will require action on multiple fronts, incorporating social justice, local context, and historical understanding into any solutions. However, this will be an exceedingly challenging task.
All of history is, in a sense, environmental history because everything we do—and civilization itself—rests upon the foundation of nature and Earth's living ecology.
I was excited about the concept of this book, but in reading it I felt that it was often too general, with some chapters covering hundreds of years in a single sweep. This made it lack depth. While there were intriguing nuggets of information, the narrative lacked cohesion overall.
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