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Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime against Humanity and Nature
A global history of environmental warfare and the case for why it should be a crime
The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces the history of scorched earth, military inundations, and armies living off the land from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, arguing that the resulting deliberate destruction of the environment--environcide--constitutes total war and is a crime against humanity and nature.
In this sweeping global history, Emmanuel Kreike shows how religious war in Europe transformed Holland into a desolate swamp where hunger and the black death ruled. He describes how Spanish conquistadores exploited the irrigation works and expansive agricultural terraces of the Aztecs and Incas, triggering a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Kreike demonstrates how environmental warfare has continued unabated into the modern era. His panoramic narrative takes readers from the Thirty Years' War to the wars of France's Sun King, and from the Dutch colonial wars in North America and Indonesia to the early twentieth century colonial conquest of southwestern Africa.
Shedding light on the premodern origins and the lasting consequences of total war, Scorched Earth explains why ecocide and genocide are not separate phenomena, and why international law must recognize environmental warfare as a violation of human rights.
The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces the history of scorched earth, military inundations, and armies living off the land from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, arguing that the resulting deliberate destruction of the environment--environcide--constitutes total war and is a crime against humanity and nature.
In this sweeping global history, Emmanuel Kreike shows how religious war in Europe transformed Holland into a desolate swamp where hunger and the black death ruled. He describes how Spanish conquistadores exploited the irrigation works and expansive agricultural terraces of the Aztecs and Incas, triggering a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Kreike demonstrates how environmental warfare has continued unabated into the modern era. His panoramic narrative takes readers from the Thirty Years' War to the wars of France's Sun King, and from the Dutch colonial wars in North America and Indonesia to the early twentieth century colonial conquest of southwestern Africa.
Shedding light on the premodern origins and the lasting consequences of total war, Scorched Earth explains why ecocide and genocide are not separate phenomena, and why international law must recognize environmental warfare as a violation of human rights.
538 pages, Hardcover
First published January 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 14, 2022
A thoroughly researched book, Scorched Earth surveys the long history of environmental destruction as a military strategy and argues how it violates human rights. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2022...
October 17, 2021
An interesting thesis, that wars of the 16th century on were often total wars in the World War I frame and often included environcide, which is correlated with genocide. MANY, MANY examples and a little light on the analysis along the way as to why this was such a pattern. But impressive research nonetheless.
March 15, 2025
Kreike compiled an impressive amount of information on the interplay between war and environmental infrastructure. It's primary value probably lies in the dense compilation of historical facts, which is undoubtedly useful for academics. As a casual reader though, I was expecting it to be more like narrative fiction. But unfortunately, a reader like me has to plough through many pages of very dry factual statements before he arrives at a conclusion leaving me constantly wondering; why am I reading this? I guess I just wasn't the target audience.
October 17, 2021
I was impressed by this book. Through a series of case studies ranging across several continents during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries historian Emmanuel Kreike demonstrates that total war existed long before the twentieth century. As an alternative to total war, Scorched Earth offers the new concept of environcide, or, deliberate warfare waged against both nature and humans primarily by targeted the environmental infrastructure of the enemy. An attack on one multiplied the damaging effects on both. For example, intentionally opening dikes in the Netherlands to flood fields damaged the farmland and displaced the human population dependent on that land. Seeking food and shelter, these hungry, sick, and weak refugees further strained the resources of the towns and cities they travelled through and to, leading to more environcide. Environcide created both immediate, devastating shocks to both nature and human society, as well as long-term consequences that lasted for generations or longer.
One finding that some might find shocking is that this form of warfare was common from the 1600s to the twentieth century on all continents and societies and was not the exclusive domain of European settler societies. Indigenous groups used against one another and the European invaders. Moreover, Europeans utilized environcide against each other, even during civil wars, as much as they did against peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
Another point he makes is that there is an element of human agency in the spread of disease. Smallpox, for example, did not kill so many millions of indigenous Americans solely because it entered a virgin environment. Instead, he contends, germs found susceptible hosts made more vulnerable to death from the hunger, violence, forced migration, and physical and emotional trauma caused by environcidal warfare and the destruction of environmental infrastructure.
One finding that some might find shocking is that this form of warfare was common from the 1600s to the twentieth century on all continents and societies and was not the exclusive domain of European settler societies. Indigenous groups used against one another and the European invaders. Moreover, Europeans utilized environcide against each other, even during civil wars, as much as they did against peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
Another point he makes is that there is an element of human agency in the spread of disease. Smallpox, for example, did not kill so many millions of indigenous Americans solely because it entered a virgin environment. Instead, he contends, germs found susceptible hosts made more vulnerable to death from the hunger, violence, forced migration, and physical and emotional trauma caused by environcidal warfare and the destruction of environmental infrastructure.
July 6, 2021
Professor Emmanuel Kreike presents us with a must read for anyone interested in how changes in the environment impact human societies. While focusing in his research on how the human conduct of war has directly affected past populations and their environment, especially when military forces directly target that populations agricultural lands and infrastructure. The findings from his historical studies are equally of interest to anyone studying how human populations may be affected by dramatic future climate change.
The "case studies" include 16th and 17th Century Netherlands during the wars with Spain and Austria (and the Thirty Years War), the 16th Century Spanish conquests of Central and South America and their forays into North America, the expansion of European Settlers in North America, the 19th Century Dutch campaigns in the Indies, and the 19th Century colonial campaigns in Angola and Namibia by Portugal and Germany. Covering all of this material on just over 400 pages of text, supported by just under 100 pages of end notes, offers fair evidence that is a serious work. Fortunately, the author's prose is clear and easy to read even if the subject matter is not always the same.
This is a must read for students of war and warfare as well as those interested in historical accounts of how populations responded to dramatic environmental change.
The "case studies" include 16th and 17th Century Netherlands during the wars with Spain and Austria (and the Thirty Years War), the 16th Century Spanish conquests of Central and South America and their forays into North America, the expansion of European Settlers in North America, the 19th Century Dutch campaigns in the Indies, and the 19th Century colonial campaigns in Angola and Namibia by Portugal and Germany. Covering all of this material on just over 400 pages of text, supported by just under 100 pages of end notes, offers fair evidence that is a serious work. Fortunately, the author's prose is clear and easy to read even if the subject matter is not always the same.
This is a must read for students of war and warfare as well as those interested in historical accounts of how populations responded to dramatic environmental change.
November 30, 2023
“Even as the early 16th to early 20th century conquerors silenced their adversaries and displaced refugees in the americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, victims made history by refusing to be erased by environcide , ecocide, and even genocide. Their words and deeds testify to the resilience (and it’s limits) of the human and non-human shaped environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies and non-human communities, despite being prime target and instrument of war since at least the early 16th century. Environcidal was a total war that triggered famine, disease epidemics, massive population displacements,and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life, and was as destructive to humanity as it was to nature. A crime.”
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews