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The Nutmeg's Curse
In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism’s violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment.
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.
Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.
Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2021
914 people are currently reading
11138 people want to read
About the author
Amitav Ghosh
55 books4,154 followersAmitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honour. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
Ghosh studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He worked at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi and several academic institutions. His first novel, The Circle of Reason, was published in 1986, which he followed with later fictional works, including The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. Between 2004 and 2015, he worked on the Ibis trilogy, which revolves around the build-up and implications of the First Opium War. His non-fiction work includes In an Antique Land (1992) and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016).
Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honours, by the President of India. In 2010, he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood, of a Dan David prize, and in 2011, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.
Ghosh studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He worked at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi and several academic institutions. His first novel, The Circle of Reason, was published in 1986, which he followed with later fictional works, including The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. Between 2004 and 2015, he worked on the Ibis trilogy, which revolves around the build-up and implications of the First Opium War. His non-fiction work includes In an Antique Land (1992) and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016).
Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honours, by the President of India. In 2010, he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood, of a Dan David prize, and in 2011, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 538 reviews
May 14, 2022
This is a compelling case that links climate change with colonial history. Indeed, The Nutmeg’s Curse is scholarly, erudite and straight to the point and this really is quite surprising considering how it links together ideas that are far apart in time but couldn’t be closer in concept.
Mindset is important and understanding how destructive imperialistic behaviour can be. Empires always have a dark history, but the ideas discussed here go far beyond people, races and history. They transcend time because unfortunately they have become an intrinsic human value. It’s about attitude, the wrong attitude: it’s about the misguided sense of superiority humans have towards the landscape, each other, and the earth.
A sense of entitlement and ownership pervades our interaction with the world and this has led to much bloodshed and the destruction of natural land. In this Ghosh links colonialism with climate change, cultural annihilation with terraforming and through this he very firmly establishes that we are still making the same mistakes. We still have not learnt. And that’s terrifying because we continue to treat each other and the earth as a commodities.
Renaming is another way of conquering the landscape because it erases the meanings behind the original inhabitants and locations: it eliminates cultural past. When the Banda Islands were conquered in the 1621, the original inhabitants were massacred and the European invaders began to change everything: they made it their own. They altered the island so they could extract and harvest Nutmeg, an extremely valuable resource at the time. They cared nothing about the consequences of their actions: they simply wanted wealth and resources regardless of the death and damage they caused. Ghosh parallels this parable with climate change and our continuous plundering of the natural world. And this narrative device works extraordinarily well.
Ghosh wrote this during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and on the cusp of the Black Lives Matters protests, and I found his personal experiences of both quite moving. Part of his own personal grief comes through in the writing as he laments historical cases of colonial injustice. Crucially, Ghosh understands that the pandemic was completely our fault. It’s our own warping and twisted of the natural world that allowed such a virus to be born. This piece of information is vital moving forward because if we continue to treat nature and animals as a mere commodity then we will continue to make the same horrific and damaging mistakes. The same can be said about the spark that lit the protests, we simply cannot treat other people in such an unjust and cruel way. It is this misguided sense of superiority and ownership that continues to create problems.
Ghosh is a very impressive writer. I found his case here so engaging that I went out a bought three more of his books after reading this. I will also be keeping my eye out for whatever else he may write on these themes. I feel like Ghosh is describing something here that has not been quite written down before or theorised at any length, and it’s quite ground-breaking the way he puts these themes and ideas together. I feel like a learnt a great deal from this book.
These are, indeed, very important words; they strike at the heart of reality and reveal the truth of not only colonial injustice but environmental catastrophe: they are one and the same.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
Mindset is important and understanding how destructive imperialistic behaviour can be. Empires always have a dark history, but the ideas discussed here go far beyond people, races and history. They transcend time because unfortunately they have become an intrinsic human value. It’s about attitude, the wrong attitude: it’s about the misguided sense of superiority humans have towards the landscape, each other, and the earth.
"To see the world in this way requires not just the physical subjugation of people and territory, but also a specific idea of conquest, as a process of extraction.”
A sense of entitlement and ownership pervades our interaction with the world and this has led to much bloodshed and the destruction of natural land. In this Ghosh links colonialism with climate change, cultural annihilation with terraforming and through this he very firmly establishes that we are still making the same mistakes. We still have not learnt. And that’s terrifying because we continue to treat each other and the earth as a commodities.
“The project of terraforming enframes the world in much the same way that the Banda Islands came to be seen by their conquerors: this is the frame as world-as-resource, in which landscapes (or planets) come to be regarded as factories and “Nature” is seen as subdued and cheap.”
Renaming is another way of conquering the landscape because it erases the meanings behind the original inhabitants and locations: it eliminates cultural past. When the Banda Islands were conquered in the 1621, the original inhabitants were massacred and the European invaders began to change everything: they made it their own. They altered the island so they could extract and harvest Nutmeg, an extremely valuable resource at the time. They cared nothing about the consequences of their actions: they simply wanted wealth and resources regardless of the death and damage they caused. Ghosh parallels this parable with climate change and our continuous plundering of the natural world. And this narrative device works extraordinarily well.
Ghosh wrote this during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and on the cusp of the Black Lives Matters protests, and I found his personal experiences of both quite moving. Part of his own personal grief comes through in the writing as he laments historical cases of colonial injustice. Crucially, Ghosh understands that the pandemic was completely our fault. It’s our own warping and twisted of the natural world that allowed such a virus to be born. This piece of information is vital moving forward because if we continue to treat nature and animals as a mere commodity then we will continue to make the same horrific and damaging mistakes. The same can be said about the spark that lit the protests, we simply cannot treat other people in such an unjust and cruel way. It is this misguided sense of superiority and ownership that continues to create problems.
"As we watch the environmental and biological disasters that are now unfolding across the Earth, it is becoming even harder to hold on to the belief that the planet is an inert body that exists merely in order to provide humans with resources."
Ghosh is a very impressive writer. I found his case here so engaging that I went out a bought three more of his books after reading this. I will also be keeping my eye out for whatever else he may write on these themes. I feel like Ghosh is describing something here that has not been quite written down before or theorised at any length, and it’s quite ground-breaking the way he puts these themes and ideas together. I feel like a learnt a great deal from this book.
These are, indeed, very important words; they strike at the heart of reality and reveal the truth of not only colonial injustice but environmental catastrophe: they are one and the same.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
September 18, 2025
This is one of those books that both attracts and repels. The Indian writer Amitav Ghosh is a prominent representative of the post-colonial movement. And in this work too, he emphasizes the brutality with which Western hegemony was established from the 16th century onwards. The book actually starts with the massacre that the Dutch inflicted in 1621 on the island of Banda, in the Indonesian archipelago, then one of the few areas where nutmeg could be extracted (hence the title).
Amitav repeats the well-known mantras of postcolonialism: the link with capitalism and market thinking, the Western sense of superiority, the blind spots of the Enlightenment and modernity, and so on. But he gradually, in a few circumferential movements, adds a deeper layer to it. Namely, that Western thinking is pre-eminently characterized by a mechanistic view of the world: the view that everything outside humans is a 'resource', because dumb, non-animated, and therefore subordinate, manipulable and exploitable. In history this is illustrated again and again in what he calls an obsession with 'terraforming' and as a consequence also extermination: for instance the colonization of the America's and the extermination of the Natives there, or - in general - the construction of a (capitalist) economy based almost entirely on fossil fuels, which in the meantime threatens the survival of humans and the earth itself. Thus, for him, the current climate problem and the erosion of biodiversity are the result of this ruthless Western approach (which has now been adopted almost all over the world), and which is inextricably linked to the aggression against past and present indigenous peoples. It is a thesis for which there certainly are valid arguments, although it is also fairly one-sided at the same time, as if no other cultures carry/carried such a brutal view of nature and of other people.
So, in terms of structure and views, there certainly is a unity in this book, but Ghosh's argument often tends to meander and wander off on side paths. And sometimes he obviously oversells himself. Towards the end, for example, there is a (justifiably) heavy outburst against eco-fascism (forms of eco-fundamentalism, for Ghosh mainly those directed against indigenous communities), but unfortunately he lapses into a rather simplistic argument against science in general.
The most contentious part of this book is where he pleads for the reintroduction of a vitalist view of the world: referring to how indigenous peoples interact with their environment, and especially with animated nature. There are valid elements for that too, but Ghosh generalizes this in such a way that he attributes to nature, to the planet (unsurprisingly, he adheres to Lovelock's Gaia theory) and to the universe an almost sacred, independent character. All 'things' tell their own narrative, is his thesis. In allegorical way that is a justified claim, but he clearly forgets that narratives always are made/interpreted by humans, and therefore never stand on their own. It is a philosophical fallacy that partly underlies the own narrative 'clou' of this book: a reference to the silent/secret force in nature (based on the book by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus book The Hidden Force, 1900).
In short, I have some issues with this book by Ghosh, but I do acknowledge that it contains some valuable and enticing insights. I would say: read this to be stimulated by numerous interesting and relevant views on colonialism, climate change, Western mechanistic thinking, etcetera, but keep a critical mindset, and make up your own opinion.
Amitav repeats the well-known mantras of postcolonialism: the link with capitalism and market thinking, the Western sense of superiority, the blind spots of the Enlightenment and modernity, and so on. But he gradually, in a few circumferential movements, adds a deeper layer to it. Namely, that Western thinking is pre-eminently characterized by a mechanistic view of the world: the view that everything outside humans is a 'resource', because dumb, non-animated, and therefore subordinate, manipulable and exploitable. In history this is illustrated again and again in what he calls an obsession with 'terraforming' and as a consequence also extermination: for instance the colonization of the America's and the extermination of the Natives there, or - in general - the construction of a (capitalist) economy based almost entirely on fossil fuels, which in the meantime threatens the survival of humans and the earth itself. Thus, for him, the current climate problem and the erosion of biodiversity are the result of this ruthless Western approach (which has now been adopted almost all over the world), and which is inextricably linked to the aggression against past and present indigenous peoples. It is a thesis for which there certainly are valid arguments, although it is also fairly one-sided at the same time, as if no other cultures carry/carried such a brutal view of nature and of other people.
So, in terms of structure and views, there certainly is a unity in this book, but Ghosh's argument often tends to meander and wander off on side paths. And sometimes he obviously oversells himself. Towards the end, for example, there is a (justifiably) heavy outburst against eco-fascism (forms of eco-fundamentalism, for Ghosh mainly those directed against indigenous communities), but unfortunately he lapses into a rather simplistic argument against science in general.
The most contentious part of this book is where he pleads for the reintroduction of a vitalist view of the world: referring to how indigenous peoples interact with their environment, and especially with animated nature. There are valid elements for that too, but Ghosh generalizes this in such a way that he attributes to nature, to the planet (unsurprisingly, he adheres to Lovelock's Gaia theory) and to the universe an almost sacred, independent character. All 'things' tell their own narrative, is his thesis. In allegorical way that is a justified claim, but he clearly forgets that narratives always are made/interpreted by humans, and therefore never stand on their own. It is a philosophical fallacy that partly underlies the own narrative 'clou' of this book: a reference to the silent/secret force in nature (based on the book by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus book The Hidden Force, 1900).
In short, I have some issues with this book by Ghosh, but I do acknowledge that it contains some valuable and enticing insights. I would say: read this to be stimulated by numerous interesting and relevant views on colonialism, climate change, Western mechanistic thinking, etcetera, but keep a critical mindset, and make up your own opinion.
November 3, 2021
Once again, Amitav Ghosh shows us the mirror. On perhaps every single page. It is really up to us if we want to see it or not. He speaks about climate change with an urgency that is pervasive throughout the book. He doesn’t cut corners and tells it like it is.
The Nutmeg’s Curse begins with how colonialism and imperialism has been responsible for mass exterminations of indigenous communities, of course to serve their own means, whose end is only greed. It then moves on to talk about capitalism being a culprit when it comes to large scale environmental damages leading to the climate change crisis at hand.
Only Amitav Ghosh can trace climate change to the 17th century and make it clear for us how it isn’t much of a recent phenomenon. The book speaks of how the Western world looked at the earth only as a resource giver and not someone with life and maybe that’s why they could never understand nature the way indigenous communities did and continue doing so.
Placing the humble nutmeg at the center of this book, Ghosh explains portrayal of human greed, lust for power, and the convenience with which most people don’t even consider climate change crisis as crisis. They just think it is a matter of slight inconvenience.
The Nutmeg’s Curse takes the reader back and forth – through various centuries, to enable the understanding of what also can be done to perhaps work with the situation. Ghosh’s writing is incisive, comes from a place of great wisdom and perspective, and more than anything else it is urgent. You can almost hear the tone of emergency in his sentences and chapters.
Ghosh through this book and the ones written in the past on the climate is himself trying to search for answers. The Nutmeg’s Curse is real, scary even, but also hopeful at the end of it all.
The Nutmeg’s Curse begins with how colonialism and imperialism has been responsible for mass exterminations of indigenous communities, of course to serve their own means, whose end is only greed. It then moves on to talk about capitalism being a culprit when it comes to large scale environmental damages leading to the climate change crisis at hand.
Only Amitav Ghosh can trace climate change to the 17th century and make it clear for us how it isn’t much of a recent phenomenon. The book speaks of how the Western world looked at the earth only as a resource giver and not someone with life and maybe that’s why they could never understand nature the way indigenous communities did and continue doing so.
Placing the humble nutmeg at the center of this book, Ghosh explains portrayal of human greed, lust for power, and the convenience with which most people don’t even consider climate change crisis as crisis. They just think it is a matter of slight inconvenience.
The Nutmeg’s Curse takes the reader back and forth – through various centuries, to enable the understanding of what also can be done to perhaps work with the situation. Ghosh’s writing is incisive, comes from a place of great wisdom and perspective, and more than anything else it is urgent. You can almost hear the tone of emergency in his sentences and chapters.
Ghosh through this book and the ones written in the past on the climate is himself trying to search for answers. The Nutmeg’s Curse is real, scary even, but also hopeful at the end of it all.
July 19, 2025
Colonization: Roots of Planetary Crises…
Preamble:
--Renowned novelist Amitav Ghosh’s prior nonfiction on the climate crisis (The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable) focused on why modern fiction (esp. novels) have such limited success in communicating structural crises, rendering them “unthinkable”.
…The last section was rushed in its attempt to distinguish:
a) the geopolitics of colonization, vs.
b) more abstract (“economics”) critiques of capitalism, curiously referencing Klein’s 2014 This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (really because it’s the most well-read book on the topic).
…Ghosh/Klein are actually in agreement in both substance and style, as Klein has been shifting to a deeper critique of capitalism, i.e. not just critiquing “Neoliberalism” “free market” capitalism (messy labels that need to be carefully unpacked) from Klein’s 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
...Indeed, I like to cite Klein’s 2014 reference of The Royal Society (the pioneering British scientific academy founded in 1660) being “at the forefront of Britain’s colonial project”, as well as the book’s highlighting of indigenous struggles against settler colonialism’s extractivism.
Highlights:
--In this extended sequel, Ghosh elaborates on the geopolitics of colonization, combining his gift of story-telling with a sprawling synthesis of academic analysis. The resulting tapestry was a gripping read, but more difficult to distill…
1) Capitalism vs. Imperialism?:
a) Capitalism in Orthodox Marxism:
--Marx’s transition from expecting socialist revolution in the West (most developed capitalism) in 1848’s The Communist Manifesto, followed by his unfinished Capital project investigating/critiquing liberal political economy (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1) led to certain Western biases:
i) capitalism’s progressive abolition of feudalism/slavery in favour of free markets/free labour
ii) capitalism’s rise as endogenous (internal) to Europe (England). (Note: later Marxists like Brenner/Wood who emphasize this "internal" lens move away from the "progressive" framing; see The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View).
--This is my biggest critique of Varoufakis’ Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, best illustrated in a debate with an Indian leftist where Varoufakis uses the Orthodox Marxist definition of capitalism (i.e. “industrial capitalism”, as well as the Brenner/Wood framing) in contrast to “mercantilism”:
--Ghosh insists on the other side’s framing; referencing Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition and other leftist works often from marginalized groups (no surprise), these early corporations are seen as capitalist profit-seeking: limited liability joint-stock, highly-developed accounting, adopted new technology, implemented industrial agriculture, etc.
--All this was indeed done through armed conquest and racialized labour (with slave markets expanding/deepening) across the world, rather than merely free markets/free labour with an eye locked to England’s domestic location.
--From the “war capitalism” where even early industrial innovations received funding from state militarism (British military industrial complex, basically), to the world wars where capitalism was suspended by not imperialism, the focus driver here is imperialism… with capitalism (the economized definition) being secondary.
--This connects to today, where the military ecological/carbon footprints are scrubbed from “economics”. Is there a “treadmill of destruction” not subordinate to the “treadmill of production”?
-Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
-The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
--International policy/academia (still dominated by the West) frame the climate crisis through economic/technological lenses with the Global South as victims without agency, whereas the Global South frames it through justice (history of race/class/geopolitics).
...I find testing both lenses and the debates that emerge to be a fruitful approach, as there is much to synthesize.
…see comments below for rest of the review…
Preamble:
--Renowned novelist Amitav Ghosh’s prior nonfiction on the climate crisis (The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable) focused on why modern fiction (esp. novels) have such limited success in communicating structural crises, rendering them “unthinkable”.
…The last section was rushed in its attempt to distinguish:
a) the geopolitics of colonization, vs.
b) more abstract (“economics”) critiques of capitalism, curiously referencing Klein’s 2014 This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (really because it’s the most well-read book on the topic).
…Ghosh/Klein are actually in agreement in both substance and style, as Klein has been shifting to a deeper critique of capitalism, i.e. not just critiquing “Neoliberalism” “free market” capitalism (messy labels that need to be carefully unpacked) from Klein’s 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
...Indeed, I like to cite Klein’s 2014 reference of The Royal Society (the pioneering British scientific academy founded in 1660) being “at the forefront of Britain’s colonial project”, as well as the book’s highlighting of indigenous struggles against settler colonialism’s extractivism.
Highlights:
--In this extended sequel, Ghosh elaborates on the geopolitics of colonization, combining his gift of story-telling with a sprawling synthesis of academic analysis. The resulting tapestry was a gripping read, but more difficult to distill…
1) Capitalism vs. Imperialism?:
a) Capitalism in Orthodox Marxism:
--Marx’s transition from expecting socialist revolution in the West (most developed capitalism) in 1848’s The Communist Manifesto, followed by his unfinished Capital project investigating/critiquing liberal political economy (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1) led to certain Western biases:
i) capitalism’s progressive abolition of feudalism/slavery in favour of free markets/free labour
ii) capitalism’s rise as endogenous (internal) to Europe (England). (Note: later Marxists like Brenner/Wood who emphasize this "internal" lens move away from the "progressive" framing; see The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View).
--This is my biggest critique of Varoufakis’ Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, best illustrated in a debate with an Indian leftist where Varoufakis uses the Orthodox Marxist definition of capitalism (i.e. “industrial capitalism”, as well as the Brenner/Wood framing) in contrast to “mercantilism”:
The Dutch East India Company was pre-capitalist […] an extractive merchant circuit that the East India Company had created. The East India Company was a combination of a joint-stock company and an imperialist state that had 200,000 soldiers that did all the looting on [their] behalf. I don’t think this is a good example of capitalism […], it’s a good example of how British imperialism and Dutch imperialism and European imperialism started.b) Anti-imperialism:
[…] you made a point about monopoly capital. East India Company is not a good example of that, but my Westinghouse, Ford and Edison trio [Second Industrial Revolution] are a good example […]
--Ghosh insists on the other side’s framing; referencing Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition and other leftist works often from marginalized groups (no surprise), these early corporations are seen as capitalist profit-seeking: limited liability joint-stock, highly-developed accounting, adopted new technology, implemented industrial agriculture, etc.
--All this was indeed done through armed conquest and racialized labour (with slave markets expanding/deepening) across the world, rather than merely free markets/free labour with an eye locked to England’s domestic location.
--From the “war capitalism” where even early industrial innovations received funding from state militarism (British military industrial complex, basically), to the world wars where capitalism was suspended by not imperialism, the focus driver here is imperialism… with capitalism (the economized definition) being secondary.
--This connects to today, where the military ecological/carbon footprints are scrubbed from “economics”. Is there a “treadmill of destruction” not subordinate to the “treadmill of production”?
-Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
-The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
--International policy/academia (still dominated by the West) frame the climate crisis through economic/technological lenses with the Global South as victims without agency, whereas the Global South frames it through justice (history of race/class/geopolitics).
...I find testing both lenses and the debates that emerge to be a fruitful approach, as there is much to synthesize.
…see comments below for rest of the review…
December 19, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Esencial y filántropo.
Es un ensayo interesantísimo, muy inteligente y entretenido, repleto de teorías muy originales que se exponen con ingenio y entrelazadas en la narración con coherencia, se vendrían a conectar en la idea de que el progreso de la civilización occidental se basa en la violencia colonial y capitalista.
Su lenguaje es muy sencillo y cuidado, claro y elegante.
A partir de una historia muy original de la nuez moscada en las islas Banda, donde la Compañía Neerlandesa de las Indias Orientales perpetró un genocidio para monopolizar su comercio, el autor ejemplifica el inicio de la destrucción del medio ambiente, por el afán colonizador de los países más poderosos para acaparar todas las riquezas de la naturaleza.
Conecta colonialismo, capitalismo, ciencia, guerra y clima.
En cada capitulo el autor justifica su teoría desde perspectivas diferentes, imaginativa, científica, política..., y lo hace con pinceladas que combinan historia, ecología, cultura, o antropología, consiguiendo una lectura muy divertida, muy novelesca.
Desmonta la idea de progreso ilimitado que depende de un consumo energético insostenible, y evidencia que una apuesta ciega por la tecnología es una forma sofisticada de negación climática, estableciendo una relación directa entre el auge de los combustibles fósiles y esta violencia explotadora. E incluso muestra que el poder militar es inseparable del poder energético, como una forma de guerra diferida, cuyos efectos recaen sobre los más vulnerables.
Esto lo analiza desde muchos ángulos. Por ejemplo, contrapone la filosofía occidental y su visión de la naturaleza como inerte y explotable, con la visión de las culturas colonizadas indígenas y premodernas, donde la naturaleza es activa y esencial en todas las relaciones.
Las culturas modernas han negado la importancia de animales, ríos, montañas y espíritus, considerándolos supersticiones, y eso ha empobrecido nuestra capacidad de responder a la crisis ecológica. Y esto le lleva a relacionar la crisis climática como crisis de imaginación, y expone varios aspectos de la cultura contemporánea (literatura, cine) que no representan la magnitud del cambio climático....
El colonialismo ha desarrollado la idea de la “terraformación”. El desarrollo occidental ha tratado la Tierra como si fuera un planeta ajeno que puede ser rediseñado a su voluntad. Es decir, la colonización, el capitalismo fósil y la ingeniería moderna son un proyecto de terraformación de la Tierra misma. Se han cambiado ecosistemas completos. Se trataron los territorios colonizados como espacios vacíos o alienígenas, aunque estuvieran habitados, asumiendo una posición de dominio absoluto. Con la crisis climática como resultado lógico.
Mientras se fantasea con terraformar Marte o exoplanetas ya estamos terraformando la Tierra de forma catastrófica. No necesitamos terraformar otros mundos, sino reaprender a vivir en este. El colonialismo ahora es climático y económico. Y la crisis climática es una crisis moral y de justicia global, que nos debería llevar hacia otras formas de convivencia que puedan replantear el lugar del ser humano en la naturaleza
Esencial y filántropo.
Es un ensayo interesantísimo, muy inteligente y entretenido, repleto de teorías muy originales que se exponen con ingenio y entrelazadas en la narración con coherencia, se vendrían a conectar en la idea de que el progreso de la civilización occidental se basa en la violencia colonial y capitalista.
Su lenguaje es muy sencillo y cuidado, claro y elegante.
A partir de una historia muy original de la nuez moscada en las islas Banda, donde la Compañía Neerlandesa de las Indias Orientales perpetró un genocidio para monopolizar su comercio, el autor ejemplifica el inicio de la destrucción del medio ambiente, por el afán colonizador de los países más poderosos para acaparar todas las riquezas de la naturaleza.
Conecta colonialismo, capitalismo, ciencia, guerra y clima.
En cada capitulo el autor justifica su teoría desde perspectivas diferentes, imaginativa, científica, política..., y lo hace con pinceladas que combinan historia, ecología, cultura, o antropología, consiguiendo una lectura muy divertida, muy novelesca.
Desmonta la idea de progreso ilimitado que depende de un consumo energético insostenible, y evidencia que una apuesta ciega por la tecnología es una forma sofisticada de negación climática, estableciendo una relación directa entre el auge de los combustibles fósiles y esta violencia explotadora. E incluso muestra que el poder militar es inseparable del poder energético, como una forma de guerra diferida, cuyos efectos recaen sobre los más vulnerables.
Esto lo analiza desde muchos ángulos. Por ejemplo, contrapone la filosofía occidental y su visión de la naturaleza como inerte y explotable, con la visión de las culturas colonizadas indígenas y premodernas, donde la naturaleza es activa y esencial en todas las relaciones.
Las culturas modernas han negado la importancia de animales, ríos, montañas y espíritus, considerándolos supersticiones, y eso ha empobrecido nuestra capacidad de responder a la crisis ecológica. Y esto le lleva a relacionar la crisis climática como crisis de imaginación, y expone varios aspectos de la cultura contemporánea (literatura, cine) que no representan la magnitud del cambio climático....
El colonialismo ha desarrollado la idea de la “terraformación”. El desarrollo occidental ha tratado la Tierra como si fuera un planeta ajeno que puede ser rediseñado a su voluntad. Es decir, la colonización, el capitalismo fósil y la ingeniería moderna son un proyecto de terraformación de la Tierra misma. Se han cambiado ecosistemas completos. Se trataron los territorios colonizados como espacios vacíos o alienígenas, aunque estuvieran habitados, asumiendo una posición de dominio absoluto. Con la crisis climática como resultado lógico.
Mientras se fantasea con terraformar Marte o exoplanetas ya estamos terraformando la Tierra de forma catastrófica. No necesitamos terraformar otros mundos, sino reaprender a vivir en este. El colonialismo ahora es climático y económico. Y la crisis climática es una crisis moral y de justicia global, que nos debería llevar hacia otras formas de convivencia que puedan replantear el lugar del ser humano en la naturaleza
October 19, 2021
Undoubtedly the most important and powerful book of the year.
Yet again, Amitav Ghosh strikes at the very heart of the global narrative and our understanding of the climate emergency. He challenges the myth of modernity, shifts the spotlight from capitalism as the primary culprit, and takes you on a mind-bending journey across space and time.
The glorified traditions of omnicide, the moral vindication sought through religion throught history, the morbid individualism imbibed as a virtue, the irresistible vanity of racial, classist and casteist heirarchies, and the human audacity to claim victory over Nature - there's not a point where Mr. Ghosh doesn't show you the mirror.
The much berated traditions of indigenous and pagan cultures to see Nature as a living entity are finally here to bite us back: thus speaks the humble nutmeg.
Yet again, Amitav Ghosh strikes at the very heart of the global narrative and our understanding of the climate emergency. He challenges the myth of modernity, shifts the spotlight from capitalism as the primary culprit, and takes you on a mind-bending journey across space and time.
The glorified traditions of omnicide, the moral vindication sought through religion throught history, the morbid individualism imbibed as a virtue, the irresistible vanity of racial, classist and casteist heirarchies, and the human audacity to claim victory over Nature - there's not a point where Mr. Ghosh doesn't show you the mirror.
The much berated traditions of indigenous and pagan cultures to see Nature as a living entity are finally here to bite us back: thus speaks the humble nutmeg.
November 7, 2021
This is a rare book that does more than just tell a story or give a particular take on an issue—rather, it provides a paradigm or lens with which to understand not only the climate crisis, but in many ways, the world in general. Ghosh painstakingly documents that is not just that colonialism and climate destruction are linked, it is how they are linked and rooted in exterminationist ideologies that we must confront. But Ghosh is always a storyteller which is part of why his nonfiction is so excellent. This stunning book argues not for naiive hope or permanent despair (though the picture is grim). Instead Ghosh asks us to recognize the vitality of the nonhuman world in its full beauty and terror.
April 19, 2021
The Nutmeg's Curse elegantly and audaciously reconceives modernity as a centuries-long campaign of omnicide, against the spirits of the earth, the rivers, the trees, and even the humble nutmeg, then makes an impassioned argument for the keen necessity of vitalist thought and non-human narrative. With sweeping historical perspective and startling insight, Ghosh has written a groundbreaking, visionary call to new forms of human life in the Anthropocene. An urgent and powerful book.
January 14, 2022
I was given this book as a Christmas present so I felt obligated to read the whole thing. The giver had spent NZ$38 on it. Let me save you the money and your valuable time: the people in charge have been exploiting everybody else and the planet for ages and we are all doomed unless we start thinking of the Earth and its flora and fauna as active beings. At least that is what I think Amitav Ghosh was saying. The books starts out well, describing the Dutch seizure of Banda where the titular spice was to be found. As for the rest, it gradually degenerates. You begin to wonder when it is briefly implied that there are aliens but it has been covered up. Your doubts are reinforced by the odd egregious error that is explicable only if the author knows little of what he is talking about, such as the claim that the volume of international seaborne trade in 1970 was just a few thousand tonnes. And it’s all over well before the end as he starts rambling about ghostly presences, and inanimate objects having agency and creating meaning (all fine metaphorically but he really seems to entertain it as reality). After the promising start the book is a hard read too, a real slog. Entire sections look like they were put together from piles of tenuously related clippings as if there was some requirement to use all of them, with quotes making up a large amount of the text. Reading the references in the back of the tome confirms this impression; a general mishmash of other people’s thoughts thrown together with the author’s own. Serious scholarship, po-mo wittering, and fiction are all given equal billing, as long as they fit the author’s prejudices. If there was an editor involved it’s not obvious. There is nothing wrong with the message that there is an environmental crisis, nor with the idea that to solve it we will need to think more carefully than we have in the past about the interconnectedness of humans, other life, and the physical processes of the Earth. But far from convicing the climate change denialists and sceptics, this book will give them ammunition: look at the crazy ideas of the people who believe in climate change! And there’s little practical advice for the silent majority of reasonable people who want to help but don’t really know what they can do at a day-to-day level in the midst of their busy and sometimes difficult lives, except perhaps an implication that they should give up their jobs to set up utopian protest camps. As the book proceeds there is a sort of descent into madness which has parallels with Heart of Darkness, a work quoted more than once by Dr Ghosh. Perhaps this is because the author is a terribly clever genius, but one suspects the irony is unintended.
February 18, 2022
Here is another work of Amitav Ghosh,. Balanced, awakening, novel and beautifully written.
December 20, 2022
The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis is essentially a sequel to The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable and every bit as brilliant. I think the title downplays it, as I was expecting a less ambitious and wide-ranging book than I found. Ghosh begins in the Banda Islands and ranges widely across the history of colonisation, capitalism, and environmental destruction, taking in Covid-19, mechanistic conceptions of the world, climate migration, and a great deal more. He is an incredibly insightful writer, adept at expressing complex concepts clearly and elegantly. I find his nonfiction writing even better than his wonderful novels (of which I particularly recommend the Ibis trilogy). Ghosh has read a good many of the same books as me, notably Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Braiding Sweetgrass, and The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, and draws upon them in his hugely thought-provoking analysis. Although there are sequences of history and memoir, the aim is to explain and critique how humanity has wrecked the Earth to the point of imperilling our ongoing survival. I found Ghosh's ideas keenly intelligent and beautifully expressed.
There is a great deal worthy of quotation, firstly use of the term terraforming to describe the effects of colonialism:
The direction in which Ghosh develops this point reminded me of The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, which theorises the beginning of capitalism in rural England as enclosure and forced dependence upon markets. This was then violently exported to Ireland, in many ways a pilot or testing ground for the model of settler colonialism that spread around the world. Ellen Meiskins Wood talks in her book about the entangled roots of capitalism and colonialism, both justifying themselves ideologically/theologically/philosophically on the basis that land must be 'improved' and used productively. As Ghosh puts it:
Interestingly, Ghosh considers capitalism the secondary effect of colonialism, whereas Meiskins Wood implicitly places capitalism first in the sequence. My thinking is that disentangling the two is not only impossible but probably not useful. Both authors write convincingly, albeit with slightly differing emphasis. Voracious growth and expansion is at the core of capitalism; perhaps it can only be considered embryonic in England and truly became an economic system once forcibly imposed overseas. As Ghosh argues:
The short chapter on the environmental impact of the military-industrial complex and its response to climate change is especially punchy. These are good fucking questions:
Ghosh wrote The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis during 2020, finishing it in late October according to the acknowledgements. Thus there are early comments on the Covid-19 pandemic and what it can tell us about the future of climate chaos:
This is just as valid in late 2022 as late 2020. Both the US and UK have continued to let covid variants chew through their populations, leaving death, disability, and collapsing health systems in their wake.
I was pleased to find another strong dismissal of the so-called 'tragedy of the commons', which is still widely bandied about as truth (e.g. in A World Without Email!) I remain angry at how uncritically it was taught in my economics A-level two decades ago:
The book concludes with a fascinating argument for the return of vitalism and mysticism while avoiding eco-fascism. I think this is gaining strength as an anticapitalist philosophy because the social sciences (especially economics) and critical theory have essentially failed to come up with a robust anticapitalist ideology. My generalisation about this from my own experience of academia is that social science and critical theory have always argued against capitalism on its own terms. Vitalism is so utterly different in its conception of reality to capitalism that it avoids that trap.
Nonetheless, Ghosh is right to be wary of how a mystical, nostalgic conception of the environment can and has been used to support nationalism, fascism, and eugenics. I was reminded of Gwyneth Jones' wonderful Bold As Love series, which was a formative influence during my teenage years. It is set in a near-future UK in which the economy has collapsed and politics fragmented into groups of eco-fascists and techno-utopians led by pop stars. Jones was remarkably farsighted to write about this twenty years ago; I should re-read the whole series soon. In any case, Ghosh carefully identifies when we must be wary of vitalism:
The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis gave me a great deal to think about and reminded me of my taste for environmentalist writing. Although books like this force me to look at hideous truths about the world head-on, the expansion of understanding that they enable is rewarding and can even be comforting. Perhaps it's time to tackle several on my shelf that have seemed too depressing to handle, such as Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency. And I definitely want to read The Falling Sky on the strength of Ghosh's recommendation.
There is a great deal worthy of quotation, firstly use of the term terraforming to describe the effects of colonialism:
The science-fictional concept of terraforming is thus an extrapolation from colonial history, except that it extends the project of creating neo-Europes into one of creating neo-Earths. Consequently, narratives of terraforming draw heavily on the rhetoric and imagery of empire, envisioning space as a 'frontier' to be 'conquered' and 'colonised'. The concept's deep roots in the settler-colonial experience may explain why it has such a wide appeal in the English-speaking world, not just among fans of science fiction, but also among tech billionaires, entrepreneurs, engineers, and so on. It suggests an almost poignant yearning to repeat an ancestral experience of colonising and subjugating not just other humans, but also planetary environments.
The direction in which Ghosh develops this point reminded me of The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, which theorises the beginning of capitalism in rural England as enclosure and forced dependence upon markets. This was then violently exported to Ireland, in many ways a pilot or testing ground for the model of settler colonialism that spread around the world. Ellen Meiskins Wood talks in her book about the entangled roots of capitalism and colonialism, both justifying themselves ideologically/theologically/philosophically on the basis that land must be 'improved' and used productively. As Ghosh puts it:
Ecological interventions were not just an incidental effect of European settlement in the Americas; they were central to the project, the explicit aim of which was to turn territories that were perceived to be wastelands into terrain that fitted a European conception of productive land. Indeed, the settlers' very claims to the territories were based on an idea that was essentially ecological: the notion that the land was 'savage', 'wild', and vacant, because it was neither tilled nor divided into property.
Interestingly, Ghosh considers capitalism the secondary effect of colonialism, whereas Meiskins Wood implicitly places capitalism first in the sequence. My thinking is that disentangling the two is not only impossible but probably not useful. Both authors write convincingly, albeit with slightly differing emphasis. Voracious growth and expansion is at the core of capitalism; perhaps it can only be considered embryonic in England and truly became an economic system once forcibly imposed overseas. As Ghosh argues:
Capitalism was never endogenous to the West: Europe's colonial conquests and the mass enslavement of Amerindians and Africans were essential to its formation. Nor was it based mostly on free labour - not even in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when many of the raw materials required by Western factories were produced by non-White workers in conditions of coercion, if not outright slavery. In the final analysis, it was the military and geopolitical dominance of the Western empires that made it possible for small minorities to exercise power over vast multitudes of people: over their bodies, their labour, their beliefs, and (not least) their environments. In that sense it was capitalism that was a secondary effect of empire, as is so clearly visible in the VOC's remaking of the Banda Islands.
The short chapter on the environmental impact of the military-industrial complex and its response to climate change is especially punchy. These are good fucking questions:
The predicament of the US Department of Defense is a refraction of the quandary that now confronts the world's status quo powers: how do you reduce your dependence on the very 'resources' on which your geopolitical power is founded? How do you reduce the fossil-fuel consumption of a gargantuan military machine that exists largely to serve as a 'delivery service' for hydrocarbons?
Ghosh wrote The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis during 2020, finishing it in late October according to the acknowledgements. Thus there are early comments on the Covid-19 pandemic and what it can tell us about the future of climate chaos:
The direction taken by the Covid-19 pandemic also suggests that future events may take some unexpected turns. Before 2020, respected experts placed the US and UK at the very top of a list of 'Countries best prepared to deal with the pandemic'. China was relegated to fifty-first place and a cluster of African countries were lumped together at the bottom. In the event, the assessment could not have been more misleading - the actual outcomes were startlingly at odds with the predictions.
[...]
Underlying all of this is another disquieting long-term trend, toward a form of governance that the anthropologist Joseph Masco has described as 'suicidal' because it 'privileges images of catastrophic future events' while being unable to respond to immediate challenges. [...] Military and security assessments of climate change fit this pattern perfectly in the sense that they project images of catastrophe into the future in a fashion that negates the possibility of confronting climate change in the present day.
This is just as valid in late 2022 as late 2020. Both the US and UK have continued to let covid variants chew through their populations, leaving death, disability, and collapsing health systems in their wake.
I was pleased to find another strong dismissal of the so-called 'tragedy of the commons', which is still widely bandied about as truth (e.g. in A World Without Email!) I remain angry at how uncritically it was taught in my economics A-level two decades ago:
Indeed, common lands existed everywhere in the world, with no tragic consequences, until Europeans, armed with guns and the ideas of John Locke and his ilk, began to forcefully impose draconian regimes of private property. An accurate title for the history of common lands would therefore be 'The Tragedy of Enclosure'.
The book concludes with a fascinating argument for the return of vitalism and mysticism while avoiding eco-fascism. I think this is gaining strength as an anticapitalist philosophy because the social sciences (especially economics) and critical theory have essentially failed to come up with a robust anticapitalist ideology. My generalisation about this from my own experience of academia is that social science and critical theory have always argued against capitalism on its own terms. Vitalism is so utterly different in its conception of reality to capitalism that it avoids that trap.
Nonetheless, Ghosh is right to be wary of how a mystical, nostalgic conception of the environment can and has been used to support nationalism, fascism, and eugenics. I was reminded of Gwyneth Jones' wonderful Bold As Love series, which was a formative influence during my teenage years. It is set in a near-future UK in which the economy has collapsed and politics fragmented into groups of eco-fascists and techno-utopians led by pop stars. Jones was remarkably farsighted to write about this twenty years ago; I should re-read the whole series soon. In any case, Ghosh carefully identifies when we must be wary of vitalism:
All this conforms to what appears to be a consistent pattern in the relationship between vitalist ideas and politics: almost always, beliefs in the Earth's sacredness and the vitality of trees, rivers, and mountains are signs of an authentic commitment to the defence of nonhumans when they are associated with what Ramachandra Guha calls 'livelihood environmentalism' - that is to say, movements that are initiated and led by people who are intimately connected with the specificities of particular landscapes. By the same token, such ideas must always be distrusted and discounted when they are espoused by elite conservationists, avaricious gurus and godmen, right-wing cults, and most of all political parties: in each of these manifestations they are likely to be signs of exactly the kind of 'mysticism' that lends itself to co-optation by exclusivist right-wingers and fascists.
The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis gave me a great deal to think about and reminded me of my taste for environmentalist writing. Although books like this force me to look at hideous truths about the world head-on, the expansion of understanding that they enable is rewarding and can even be comforting. Perhaps it's time to tackle several on my shelf that have seemed too depressing to handle, such as Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency. And I definitely want to read The Falling Sky on the strength of Ghosh's recommendation.
May 9, 2023
Apparently I have misplaced the review I first wrote, so to cut to the chase here, this is the sort of book a scientist would not think to write, but a novelist can. It morphs between history, contemplation and observation, punchy detail of our world now, and personal experience. There is something graphically shocking in the observation that we are as primitive and savage in our treatment of the world and its inhabitants now as the Dutch were in those days of the nutmeg. Underlying it throughout is the sometimes implied and sometimes explicit understanding that the industrialised part of the world is that which is barbaric and destructive. As you read the story Ghosh unfolds, it's hard to demur.
I suspect it meanders more than it should, but then again, I did it the disservice of putting it down half way through and not picking it up for some months, so the fault there may be entirely mine. And then I did it with the review too :(
I suspect it meanders more than it should, but then again, I did it the disservice of putting it down half way through and not picking it up for some months, so the fault there may be entirely mine. And then I did it with the review too :(
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June 24, 2024
“It is a grave error to imagine that the world is not preparing for the disrupted planet of the future. It’s just that it’s not preparing by taking mitigatory measures or by reducing emissions: instead, it is preparing for a new geopolitical struggle for dominance.”
While at many points it is an eloquent look into the world and the blooming climate crisis—and how climate change is one piece of a rapidly emerging disaster based on geopolitical struggles rooted in white supremacy—it falters at many points.
Particularly in some of the researched bits, and the fact that Ghosh heavily alludes that we have been visited recently by extraterrestrial beings and that the US government was covering it up (the book was released just as the big boom in UFOs was being released to the public).
Anywho, taking that aside, it's a hard look at those who are going to suffer the most—and who are currently suffering as climate change destroys the current way of life.
It's not enough to think about individual impact (although that's part of it), but how our actions are tied into our politics and the institutions we uphold and support (*cough cough* the military industrial complex).
While at many points it is an eloquent look into the world and the blooming climate crisis—and how climate change is one piece of a rapidly emerging disaster based on geopolitical struggles rooted in white supremacy—it falters at many points.
Particularly in some of the researched bits, and the fact that Ghosh heavily alludes that we have been visited recently by extraterrestrial beings and that the US government was covering it up (the book was released just as the big boom in UFOs was being released to the public).
Anywho, taking that aside, it's a hard look at those who are going to suffer the most—and who are currently suffering as climate change destroys the current way of life.
It's not enough to think about individual impact (although that's part of it), but how our actions are tied into our politics and the institutions we uphold and support (*cough cough* the military industrial complex).
March 2, 2022
It was almost a point of no relevance, but at the beginning of this sorry tale, a lamp fell onto the floor. It happened in a dwelling on the Island of Banda and rather it is seen for what it actually was, a mishap of no real significance, it was the start of the clearance of the islands. Sonak, a Dutchman, was there to remove the people from their homes and to take the nutmeg from them. The crash of the lamps as it hit the floor was thought to be an attack on that place and they begin shooting at random.
It is this moment that Ghosh thinks was the beginning of the present climate crisis as well as the current imperialism that still dominates the world. This relentless greed has driven countries and companies to eradicate people and places for the resources that were once theirs. That same philosophy where the earth is seen as a source of materials and therefore a source of money is still prevalent today, just look at the way that oil companies work in ensuring that their income streams are not restricted by local people who want to live in a safe environment.
Gosh uses lots of examples to demonstrate this point and show how these inequalities are deeply rooted in our present western culture. He also looks at how indigenous people use the resources available to them in a sustainable way and how this Traditional Ecological Knowledge (or TEK) is showing how these people used the planet in ways that could keep going indefinitely. This indigenous knowledge has gone from most western cultures and with that we have lost the ability to learn the stories of the land. Seeing the planetary crisis through the eyes of a shaman is quite startling.
Yes I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn the songs
This is not an easy book to like as it subject and content make for fairly grim reading. That said, Ghosh has written an important book about the roots of our present dilemmas, climate change and geopolitical power that can be traced back to the Isles of Banda. I tend to agree with his conclusions, that seeing the planet purely as a source of resources to be exploited to the nth degree has led us to this point. These vested interests are keeping us in this cycle of destruction, but as he hints at the end of the book in his conclusions, there is a glimmer of hope.
It is this moment that Ghosh thinks was the beginning of the present climate crisis as well as the current imperialism that still dominates the world. This relentless greed has driven countries and companies to eradicate people and places for the resources that were once theirs. That same philosophy where the earth is seen as a source of materials and therefore a source of money is still prevalent today, just look at the way that oil companies work in ensuring that their income streams are not restricted by local people who want to live in a safe environment.
Gosh uses lots of examples to demonstrate this point and show how these inequalities are deeply rooted in our present western culture. He also looks at how indigenous people use the resources available to them in a sustainable way and how this Traditional Ecological Knowledge (or TEK) is showing how these people used the planet in ways that could keep going indefinitely. This indigenous knowledge has gone from most western cultures and with that we have lost the ability to learn the stories of the land. Seeing the planetary crisis through the eyes of a shaman is quite startling.
Yes I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn the songs
This is not an easy book to like as it subject and content make for fairly grim reading. That said, Ghosh has written an important book about the roots of our present dilemmas, climate change and geopolitical power that can be traced back to the Isles of Banda. I tend to agree with his conclusions, that seeing the planet purely as a source of resources to be exploited to the nth degree has led us to this point. These vested interests are keeping us in this cycle of destruction, but as he hints at the end of the book in his conclusions, there is a glimmer of hope.
June 16, 2025
An excellent synthesis of the worldviews, systems, histories, and geopolitical dynamics that foster omnicide and environmental destruction today, through political, historical, linguistic, and spiritual dimensions. I appreciated how Ghosh related the different ways that humans talk about, relate to, and therefore interact with (/terraform) the earth to our species and societal level relationship with the earth…. with the dominant worldview violently formed via centuries of understanding of nature as an inanimate means for resource extraction and trade, extending this perspective as convenient to any peoples and groups in its way
Sometimes he went on some tangents / told stories that felt a little hollow or out of place, but it all connected back to the main themes, many of which are often left out of other discourse on the sociopolitical dimensions on climate change / colonialism / etc. Clearly a smart and well founded perspective — would recommend!
4.5 stars!
Sometimes he went on some tangents / told stories that felt a little hollow or out of place, but it all connected back to the main themes, many of which are often left out of other discourse on the sociopolitical dimensions on climate change / colonialism / etc. Clearly a smart and well founded perspective — would recommend!
4.5 stars!
October 1, 2025
Interessant essay van bijna 300 pagina's. Door de soms complexe woordkeuze was het regelmatig een worsteling om het einde van een hoofdstuk te halen.
Dit boek heeft me wel meer inzicht gegeven in de vernietigende krachten van ons huidige economische systeem.
Het ging niet in de 19e eeuw mis maar in de 17e eeuw al. Toen inheemse bevolkingen, die wel in harmonie met de aarde leefden, werden vertrapt en vermoord om plaats te maken voor koloniale grootmachten en hun systemen. Vanaf dat moment werd de aarde een voorraadschuurtje.
Aanrader voor bekeerde bedrijfseconomen (zoals ondergetekende).
Dit boek heeft me wel meer inzicht gegeven in de vernietigende krachten van ons huidige economische systeem.
Het ging niet in de 19e eeuw mis maar in de 17e eeuw al. Toen inheemse bevolkingen, die wel in harmonie met de aarde leefden, werden vertrapt en vermoord om plaats te maken voor koloniale grootmachten en hun systemen. Vanaf dat moment werd de aarde een voorraadschuurtje.
Aanrader voor bekeerde bedrijfseconomen (zoals ondergetekende).
February 3, 2022
Before The Nutmeg’s Curse, I didn’t know Amitav Ghosh for his non-fiction work. I wasn’t even sure this book would be one.
Yet, to my astonishment, it was easy-flowing, filled with anecdotes, rigorous and well-researched. Amitav Ghosh is a brilliant storyteller and at times, I even forgot I was actually reading a non-fiction.
Having already read extensively on the ecological crisis, I feel that The Nutmeg’s Curse connects the dots, and brings something peculiar to this complex and multi-layered topic.
Yet, to my astonishment, it was easy-flowing, filled with anecdotes, rigorous and well-researched. Amitav Ghosh is a brilliant storyteller and at times, I even forgot I was actually reading a non-fiction.
Having already read extensively on the ecological crisis, I feel that The Nutmeg’s Curse connects the dots, and brings something peculiar to this complex and multi-layered topic.
February 11, 2025
حين يصبح التاريخ لعنة، ويتحوّل النبات إلى شاهدٍ على المذابح، ويفضي الاستعمار إلى خراب الكوكب، فإن الحكاية ليست مجرد ماضٍ غابر، بل جرحٌ مفتوحٌ في قلب الحاضر...
هل يمكن لحبة صغيرة، مثل جوزة الطيب، أن تكشف الستار عن تاريخ البشرية المعاصر بكل مآسيه؟ في "للحرب وجه آخر", لا يكتفي أميتاب غوش بسرد التاريخ، بل يفككه ليكشف كيف تشكّل عالمنا الحديث على أنقاض الاستعمار، وأطماع الرأسمالية، والكوارث البيئية. هذا الكتاب ليس مجرد تأمل في الماضي، بل صرخة تحذير من مستقبل يزداد قتامة كلما تعمقنا في دوامة الاستغلال والجشع.
ينطلق غوش من قصة جوزة الطيب، التي لم تكن يومًا مجرد بهار، بل كانت سببًا لمجازر استعمارية وحروب اقتصادية في القرن السابع عشر، حين أبادت الإمبراطورية الهولندية سكان جزر باندا الإندونيسية من أجل احتكار هذه النبتة الثمينة. لكنه لا يروي هذه القصة كحكاية تاريخية منفصلة، بل يربطها مباشرة بالحاضر، ليُظهِر كيف أن المنظومة الاستعمارية لم تنتهِ، بل تحوّلت إلى أنماط جديدة من السيطرة، سواء من خلال الاحتكار الرأسمالي، أو سياسات الدول العظمى، أو حتى التغير المناخي الذي يضرب أفقر شعوب العالم أولًا، تمامًا كما كان الاستعمار يسحقهم قبل قرون.
ما يميز هذا الكتاب هو نظرته الشاملة، التي تربط بين الاستعمار والرأسمالية والبيئة في نسيج فكري عميق. فهو لا يرى أن أزمة المناخ اليوم مجرد مشكلة بيئية، بل يعرضها كإرث طويل من العنف، حيث تعاملت القوى العظمى مع الأرض كما تعاملت مع الشعوب المستعمَرة: مورد يُستنزف بلا رحمة.
يطرح غوش فكرة ثورية: أن الكوكب نفسه لم يكن يومًا كيانًا محايدًا في هذه الحرب، بل كان طرفًا مظلومًا في صراع طويل بين الإنسان والطبيعة، حيث استُغلّت الأرض كما استُغل البشر في مستعمرات الماضي، وكما يُستغلون اليوم في مصانع الرأسمالية الحديثة.
يمزج غوش في كتابه بين التاريخ، والفلسفة، والسرد الأدبي، ليخلق نصًا يأسر القارئ، كأنه يسير به بين جزر باندا المنكوبة، ثم يأخذه إلى غابات الأمازون المحترقة، ثم يُسقطه في قلب الكوارث الحديثة، ليُريه أن الحرب على الطبيعة هي امتداد للحروب الاستعمارية. بأسلوبه العميق والمشوّق، لا يقدّم فقط معلومات، بل يضعك أمام أسئلة جوهرية:
هل الاستعمار انتهى حقًا، أم أنه ارتدى قناعًا جديدًا؟
لماذا تدفع الشعوب الفقيرة الثمن الأكبر في أزمة المناخ، رغم أنها لم تكن سببًا فيها؟
كيف يمكننا إعادة التفكير في علاقتنا بالكوكب قبل فوات الأوان؟
إذا كنت تبحث عن قراءة عميقة تكشف لك كيف يتشابك الماضي بالحاضر، والسياسة بالبيئة، والاستعمار بالرأسمالية، فهذا الكتاب لك. إنه ليس فقط لمحبي التاريخ أو المناخ، بل لكل من يريد أن يفهم العالم بمعادلة جديدة، حيث لا يمكن فصل خراب الكوكب عن خراب الشعوب المستضعفة عبر التاريخ.
"للحرب وجه آخر" هو كتاب يوقظ وعي القارئ، ويدفعه إلى رؤية التاريخ والحاضر من زاوية لم يكن يدركها من قبل. إنه درس في كيف أن الظلم قد يتغير شكله، لكنه لا يختفي، ما لم نواجهه بوعي جديد.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
هل يمكن لحبة صغيرة، مثل جوزة الطيب، أن تكشف الستار عن تاريخ البشرية المعاصر بكل مآسيه؟ في "للحرب وجه آخر", لا يكتفي أميتاب غوش بسرد التاريخ، بل يفككه ليكشف كيف تشكّل عالمنا الحديث على أنقاض الاستعمار، وأطماع الرأسمالية، والكوارث البيئية. هذا الكتاب ليس مجرد تأمل في الماضي، بل صرخة تحذير من مستقبل يزداد قتامة كلما تعمقنا في دوامة الاستغلال والجشع.
ينطلق غوش من قصة جوزة الطيب، التي لم تكن يومًا مجرد بهار، بل كانت سببًا لمجازر استعمارية وحروب اقتصادية في القرن السابع عشر، حين أبادت الإمبراطورية الهولندية سكان جزر باندا الإندونيسية من أجل احتكار هذه النبتة الثمينة. لكنه لا يروي هذه القصة كحكاية تاريخية منفصلة، بل يربطها مباشرة بالحاضر، ليُظهِر كيف أن المنظومة الاستعمارية لم تنتهِ، بل تحوّلت إلى أنماط جديدة من السيطرة، سواء من خلال الاحتكار الرأسمالي، أو سياسات الدول العظمى، أو حتى التغير المناخي الذي يضرب أفقر شعوب العالم أولًا، تمامًا كما كان الاستعمار يسحقهم قبل قرون.
ما يميز هذا الكتاب هو نظرته الشاملة، التي تربط بين الاستعمار والرأسمالية والبيئة في نسيج فكري عميق. فهو لا يرى أن أزمة المناخ اليوم مجرد مشكلة بيئية، بل يعرضها كإرث طويل من العنف، حيث تعاملت القوى العظمى مع الأرض كما تعاملت مع الشعوب المستعمَرة: مورد يُستنزف بلا رحمة.
يطرح غوش فكرة ثورية: أن الكوكب نفسه لم يكن يومًا كيانًا محايدًا في هذه الحرب، بل كان طرفًا مظلومًا في صراع طويل بين الإنسان والطبيعة، حيث استُغلّت الأرض كما استُغل البشر في مستعمرات الماضي، وكما يُستغلون اليوم في مصانع الرأسمالية الحديثة.
يمزج غوش في كتابه بين التاريخ، والفلسفة، والسرد الأدبي، ليخلق نصًا يأسر القارئ، كأنه يسير به بين جزر باندا المنكوبة، ثم يأخذه إلى غابات الأمازون المحترقة، ثم يُسقطه في قلب الكوارث الحديثة، ليُريه أن الحرب على الطبيعة هي امتداد للحروب الاستعمارية. بأسلوبه العميق والمشوّق، لا يقدّم فقط معلومات، بل يضعك أمام أسئلة جوهرية:
هل الاستعمار انتهى حقًا، أم أنه ارتدى قناعًا جديدًا؟
لماذا تدفع الشعوب الفقيرة الثمن الأكبر في أزمة المناخ، رغم أنها لم تكن سببًا فيها؟
كيف يمكننا إعادة التفكير في علاقتنا بالكوكب قبل فوات الأوان؟
إذا كنت تبحث عن قراءة عميقة تكشف لك كيف يتشابك الماضي بالحاضر، والسياسة بالبيئة، والاستعمار بالرأسمالية، فهذا الكتاب لك. إنه ليس فقط لمحبي التاريخ أو المناخ، بل لكل من يريد أن يفهم العالم بمعادلة جديدة، حيث لا يمكن فصل خراب الكوكب عن خراب الشعوب المستضعفة عبر التاريخ.
"للحرب وجه آخر" هو كتاب يوقظ وعي القارئ، ويدفعه إلى رؤية التاريخ والحاضر من زاوية لم يكن يدركها من قبل. إنه درس في كيف أن الظلم قد يتغير شكله، لكنه لا يختفي، ما لم نواجهه بوعي جديد.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
December 5, 2023
One of those books that really changes your perspective of the world. To see ourselves as a separate entity from our natural environment is really a plague on Western thought. More environmental studies /sciences need to be taught from non-western lenses if we are ever going to do anything meaningful to address the climate crisis.
I would love to see this book be a pre-read for college students studying the environment or natural sciences, I would have benefited from this philosophical viewpoint in my environmental public health program.
I would love to see this book be a pre-read for college students studying the environment or natural sciences, I would have benefited from this philosophical viewpoint in my environmental public health program.
March 3, 2022
The hype is right about this book. It is a book that challenges you to look at things a little bit differently and to make you think. It does bring a different look to colonization as well the expanding of empires. It even ties into the Ukraine invasion.
Well worth reading.
It will leave you thinking.
Well worth reading.
It will leave you thinking.
December 28, 2022
“Il risultato è un mondo a testa in giú. Cinque secoli di storia – risalendo alle rivalità geopolitiche per il controllo delle spezie – hanno dato ai paesi piú «progrediti» del mondo un interesse strategico a perpetuare il regime globale dei combustibili fossili. Viceversa, la medesima storia ha fornito a potenze in ascesa quali Cina e India importanti incentivi strategici per passare alle rinnovabili.”
Amitav Ghosh ha iniziato a scrivere questo libro nel 2020 quando era confinato in casa, durante il primo lockdown. Complice il coronavirus, grazie a internet, Amitav Ghosh riuscì a reperire un libro del 1621 sulla noce moscata scritto in olandese.
“Ho cominciato a scrivere questo capitolo all’inizio di marzo del 2020, proprio quando una microscopica entità, il nuovissimo coronavirus, stava rapidamente diventando la piú diffusa, piú minacciosa e piú inevitabile presenza del pianeta. Mentre le automobili e la gente sparivano dalle strade di Brooklyn, dove abito, fui preso da uno strano senso di spaesamento. Leggendo gli appunti che avevo preso durante un viaggio nelle isole Banda nel novembre 2016, avevo talora la sconcertante sensazione di essere spiritualmente tornato nell’arcipelago.”
Attraverso questo saggio, l’autore collega In modo estremamente chiaro i cambiamenti climatici con il colonialismo:
“Sull’isola molucchese di Kai, non lontano dalle Banda, ci sono villaggi ancor oggi abitati in prevalenza da discendenti dei sopravvissuti al genocidio del 1621. I nomi di tali villaggi evocano la patria perduta, e i loro abitanti parlano ancora il turwandan; i loro canti e racconti riportano tuttora in vita non solo il «monte Banda», ma anche la sua benedizione (o maledizione), la noce moscata.
noi piangiamo e piangiamo
il giorno che
«ci imbattiamo in te»
noi, perle di saggezza,
i frutti dell’albero della noce moscata sono morti
lei manda una lettera cosí noi possiamo parlare
perle di saggezza
frutti dell’albero della noce moscata sono morti
perle di saggezza
gli alberi della noce moscata sono morti
non c’è fede qui
non c’è benedizione dentro questa isola.”
I cambiamenti climatici, I colonialismi, i genocidi dal 1600 ai giorni nostri sono tutti accomunati dalla falsa idea della supremazia dell’uomo sulla natura e sugli altri uomini.
“Ogni albero di noce moscata o chiodi di garofano su qualunque altra isola – e ce ne sono piú di un migliaio nelle Molucche – doveva essere estirpato5. Si lanciò pertanto una campagna di sradicamento, o estirpazione (exterpatie), che il sultano di Ternate – l’isola che per secoli era stata il centro del commercio dei chiodi di garofano – fu costretto ad approvare firmando, nel 1652, un trattato con cui s’impegnava a distruggere ogni singolo albero di chiodi di garofano sull’isola6. Anche i chiodi di garofano, al pari della noce moscata, erano diventati latori della «maledizione della risorsa», un dramma che nei secoli a venire avrebbe consumato gran parte del pianeta.”
Amitav Ghosh attraverso i vari capitoli invita il lettore a una profonda riflessione: non siamo gli unici esseri viventi.
“Tuttavia, oggi anche le scienze sono costrette a fare i conti con le forze invisibili che si manifestano in eventi climatici di una violenza perturbante e senza precedenti.
E man mano che s’intensificano, tali eventi rendono sempre piú rilevanti voci come quella di Davi Kopenawa, voci che, pur al cospetto di un’implacabile, apocalittica violenza, continuano cocciutamente a sostenere che i non umani possono e devono parlare. Con il rafforzarsi della prospettiva di una catastrofe planetaria, è essenziale che queste voci non umane ritrovino un posto nelle nostre storie.
La sorte degli umani, e di tutti i nostri parenti, dipende da questo.”
Amitav Ghosh ha iniziato a scrivere questo libro nel 2020 quando era confinato in casa, durante il primo lockdown. Complice il coronavirus, grazie a internet, Amitav Ghosh riuscì a reperire un libro del 1621 sulla noce moscata scritto in olandese.
“Ho cominciato a scrivere questo capitolo all’inizio di marzo del 2020, proprio quando una microscopica entità, il nuovissimo coronavirus, stava rapidamente diventando la piú diffusa, piú minacciosa e piú inevitabile presenza del pianeta. Mentre le automobili e la gente sparivano dalle strade di Brooklyn, dove abito, fui preso da uno strano senso di spaesamento. Leggendo gli appunti che avevo preso durante un viaggio nelle isole Banda nel novembre 2016, avevo talora la sconcertante sensazione di essere spiritualmente tornato nell’arcipelago.”
Attraverso questo saggio, l’autore collega In modo estremamente chiaro i cambiamenti climatici con il colonialismo:
“Sull’isola molucchese di Kai, non lontano dalle Banda, ci sono villaggi ancor oggi abitati in prevalenza da discendenti dei sopravvissuti al genocidio del 1621. I nomi di tali villaggi evocano la patria perduta, e i loro abitanti parlano ancora il turwandan; i loro canti e racconti riportano tuttora in vita non solo il «monte Banda», ma anche la sua benedizione (o maledizione), la noce moscata.
noi piangiamo e piangiamo
il giorno che
«ci imbattiamo in te»
noi, perle di saggezza,
i frutti dell’albero della noce moscata sono morti
lei manda una lettera cosí noi possiamo parlare
perle di saggezza
frutti dell’albero della noce moscata sono morti
perle di saggezza
gli alberi della noce moscata sono morti
non c’è fede qui
non c’è benedizione dentro questa isola.”
I cambiamenti climatici, I colonialismi, i genocidi dal 1600 ai giorni nostri sono tutti accomunati dalla falsa idea della supremazia dell’uomo sulla natura e sugli altri uomini.
“Ogni albero di noce moscata o chiodi di garofano su qualunque altra isola – e ce ne sono piú di un migliaio nelle Molucche – doveva essere estirpato5. Si lanciò pertanto una campagna di sradicamento, o estirpazione (exterpatie), che il sultano di Ternate – l’isola che per secoli era stata il centro del commercio dei chiodi di garofano – fu costretto ad approvare firmando, nel 1652, un trattato con cui s’impegnava a distruggere ogni singolo albero di chiodi di garofano sull’isola6. Anche i chiodi di garofano, al pari della noce moscata, erano diventati latori della «maledizione della risorsa», un dramma che nei secoli a venire avrebbe consumato gran parte del pianeta.”
Amitav Ghosh attraverso i vari capitoli invita il lettore a una profonda riflessione: non siamo gli unici esseri viventi.
“Tuttavia, oggi anche le scienze sono costrette a fare i conti con le forze invisibili che si manifestano in eventi climatici di una violenza perturbante e senza precedenti.
E man mano che s’intensificano, tali eventi rendono sempre piú rilevanti voci come quella di Davi Kopenawa, voci che, pur al cospetto di un’implacabile, apocalittica violenza, continuano cocciutamente a sostenere che i non umani possono e devono parlare. Con il rafforzarsi della prospettiva di una catastrofe planetaria, è essenziale che queste voci non umane ritrovino un posto nelle nostre storie.
La sorte degli umani, e di tutti i nostri parenti, dipende da questo.”
January 5, 2022
Ghosh is capable of distilling the novel arguments he weaves, as evidenced by recent lectures promoting the book. He presents a fascinating critique of capitalist, colonial, and empirical silencing of natural beings, and how this has led to the misapplication of supposedly corrective disciplines such as Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Unfortunately, these arguments are more well-formed and connected in his lectures than in the writing—I recommend his presentation at the Brooklyn Public Library in December 2021 as a suitable and complete alternative to reading the book itself.
Perhaps this is a premature book. Much of it is concerned with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Those sections read as obsolete given that they were written more than a year before publication and seem simplistic in their inability to conceive of the world we now inhabit after publication (At one point he remarks that there had been 100k COVID deaths in the US. How quaint). The preoccupation with remaining en vogue with real-time commentary on 2020 events reads as passé in a 2021 book, is all. And, especially in comparison to similar books like Inflamed: Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice which more thoughtfully consider the scope of their arguments in relation to the pandemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse feels like a rushed product.
Perhaps this is a premature book. Much of it is concerned with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Those sections read as obsolete given that they were written more than a year before publication and seem simplistic in their inability to conceive of the world we now inhabit after publication (At one point he remarks that there had been 100k COVID deaths in the US. How quaint). The preoccupation with remaining en vogue with real-time commentary on 2020 events reads as passé in a 2021 book, is all. And, especially in comparison to similar books like Inflamed: Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice which more thoughtfully consider the scope of their arguments in relation to the pandemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse feels like a rushed product.
May 16, 2022
This book uses the trade of nutmeg and colonialism to illustrate the problems of today and the future. The author seems to buy into the “Nobel savage” myth that earlier societies lived more in tune to the land. However, to some degree this must have been the case. We have lost the ability to talk to the moon and the stars and the trees. Definitely too much is rationalized. There must still be some middle ground here - you can still feel nature inspired awe without believing in mother Gaia. Can’t you? But without respect for her, I guess we’re doomed to continue on the current downward spiral to an uninhabitable earth.
January 19, 2024
every environmental studies class in one book
December 12, 2022
This is a bit hard to give a rating because Ghosh has a written a complex mix of history, essays, testimonials and polemics of how imperialism and colonialism were a conquest and an exploitation of human life and of the natural environment leading us to today’s planetary climate crisis. It is a sharp critique of the White world and the supremacy it has exercised through centuries.
I found all of the following very insightful: his research on how lands (particularly in America) have been terraformed to match neo-Europe, the plight of Native American Indians/indigenous people has been in the face of governments (appreciated the reference to Braiding Sweetgrass and Robin Wall Kimmerer), the plight of climate change migrants, the importance of vitalist/animist theories amidst the mechanistic view of the world, the enormous (but conveniently undocumented) carbon footprint of the defense/military systems of American and western countries and finally the exploitation of Bandanese and others at the expense of extracting spices/resources for capitalist benefits.
There were times when Ghosh’s narrative becomes a bit long winded and confusing so it was a bit hard to follow his train of logic. Overall though this is a very well-researched and compelling book that provides a wide historical perspective for all the sharp arguments.
I found all of the following very insightful: his research on how lands (particularly in America) have been terraformed to match neo-Europe, the plight of Native American Indians/indigenous people has been in the face of governments (appreciated the reference to Braiding Sweetgrass and Robin Wall Kimmerer), the plight of climate change migrants, the importance of vitalist/animist theories amidst the mechanistic view of the world, the enormous (but conveniently undocumented) carbon footprint of the defense/military systems of American and western countries and finally the exploitation of Bandanese and others at the expense of extracting spices/resources for capitalist benefits.
There were times when Ghosh’s narrative becomes a bit long winded and confusing so it was a bit hard to follow his train of logic. Overall though this is a very well-researched and compelling book that provides a wide historical perspective for all the sharp arguments.
August 28, 2022
I really enjoyed a lot about this book! However, I was frustrated with it for the first 98 pages because of the lack of focus. Ghosh was just hopping around, going off into tangents or too many details or quotes, and repeating himself. It's like he was trying to tie everything he learned over decades into the one thesis.
As an example, the disorganization culminates in the Monstrous Gaia chapter, in which Ghosh starts out describing conversations between James Lovelock and William Golding--the developer of the "Gaia hypothesis" and author of The Lord of the Flies respectively. He diverts into Greek mythology, telling the story of Gaia and her offspring, then ties that into the biblical fruit from the tree of knowledge. The next section starts to talk about products of the earth being commodities and then focuses on opium for some reason. Then he talks about names defining the relationships we have, telling stories related to Rumphius and Linnean nomenclature. Then he talks about the different names given to nutmeg and talks about what he sees in a nutmeg as he holds it in his hand. That was chapter 7, and it was 14 pages of, "What now?"
But then somehow Ghosh hit his stride starting in chapter 8. He starts talking about fossil fuels and the petrodollar and the current world order evolving from world order created by the the imperial/colonial era. It's great! He discusses climate change and how it impacts poor people more, talks about migration, and current science and politics. I really enjoyed the next hundred and some pages.
He loses his focus and starts to fall apart again in the last few chapters. Though there were some parts that captured my attention toward the end, none of it leads to a solid conclusion and the ending left me unsatisfied. I would say to flip through the first seven chapters, actually start the book at chapter 8, and start skimming again when you notice Ghosh losing focus.
I really like all of the perspectives and learned a lot but was clearly frustrated by the lack of focus on a cohesive thesis.
As an example, the disorganization culminates in the Monstrous Gaia chapter, in which Ghosh starts out describing conversations between James Lovelock and William Golding--the developer of the "Gaia hypothesis" and author of The Lord of the Flies respectively. He diverts into Greek mythology, telling the story of Gaia and her offspring, then ties that into the biblical fruit from the tree of knowledge. The next section starts to talk about products of the earth being commodities and then focuses on opium for some reason. Then he talks about names defining the relationships we have, telling stories related to Rumphius and Linnean nomenclature. Then he talks about the different names given to nutmeg and talks about what he sees in a nutmeg as he holds it in his hand. That was chapter 7, and it was 14 pages of, "What now?"
But then somehow Ghosh hit his stride starting in chapter 8. He starts talking about fossil fuels and the petrodollar and the current world order evolving from world order created by the the imperial/colonial era. It's great! He discusses climate change and how it impacts poor people more, talks about migration, and current science and politics. I really enjoyed the next hundred and some pages.
He loses his focus and starts to fall apart again in the last few chapters. Though there were some parts that captured my attention toward the end, none of it leads to a solid conclusion and the ending left me unsatisfied. I would say to flip through the first seven chapters, actually start the book at chapter 8, and start skimming again when you notice Ghosh losing focus.
I really like all of the perspectives and learned a lot but was clearly frustrated by the lack of focus on a cohesive thesis.
February 9, 2022
Amitav Ghosh does not need an introduction. His fiction and non-fiction works are equally engaging. I have read most of his books and I was equally excited to have picked this one up. But, I found it a bit disappointing. Here's why.
The first few chapters are of repetitive content as if the author wants to keep reminding you of his initial points lest you forget. You can skip some of the chapters after the couple of initial ones without disrupting your reading flow and missing any good piece of information.
The middle chapters make up the core of the book - backed with brilliant research and sound logic. Rather heavy to read in some places but still brilliant.
And, then comes the ending. The last few chapters that spoil the whole point of the book, I suppose. He arduously stacks up his initial points which are indeed strongly put and justifiably so but the ending topples the whole thing off. The thing about spirits, ghosts, nonhuman entities and "cold breeze blowing" - is blandly put - unrealistic, sentimental farce, in my personal and humble opinion.
However, read this book all the same. It's illuminating in a lot of ways. But, take the ending with a pinch of salt.
The first few chapters are of repetitive content as if the author wants to keep reminding you of his initial points lest you forget. You can skip some of the chapters after the couple of initial ones without disrupting your reading flow and missing any good piece of information.
The middle chapters make up the core of the book - backed with brilliant research and sound logic. Rather heavy to read in some places but still brilliant.
And, then comes the ending. The last few chapters that spoil the whole point of the book, I suppose. He arduously stacks up his initial points which are indeed strongly put and justifiably so but the ending topples the whole thing off. The thing about spirits, ghosts, nonhuman entities and "cold breeze blowing" - is blandly put - unrealistic, sentimental farce, in my personal and humble opinion.
However, read this book all the same. It's illuminating in a lot of ways. But, take the ending with a pinch of salt.
January 18, 2022
4.5 rounded up to 5.
The author weaves together different aspects of how the capitalist enterprise, the colonial forces, and destruction of humans, landscapes and non-humans are intricately tied.
I really loved how the author created and controlled the narrative, meandering through early colonial history to today's ecological crisis, all the while connecting the dots between them. Brilliant!
The author weaves together different aspects of how the capitalist enterprise, the colonial forces, and destruction of humans, landscapes and non-humans are intricately tied.
I really loved how the author created and controlled the narrative, meandering through early colonial history to today's ecological crisis, all the while connecting the dots between them. Brilliant!
May 6, 2024
What a powerful and sobering read. It explores the relationship between colonialism and environmental impact and change.; where the terraforming induced by agriculture was a form of warfare as was the deliberate spreading of smallpox and other diseases. But also that the Earth is fighting back : the most terraformed parts of the world are the same places where fires, flash floods and other environmental disasters are becoming more frequent. A very thought provoking, impactful and eye opening read.
November 17, 2023
This was very interesting. It's a very different way of looking at the world than I'm used to. I find it challenging to hold in my head but it's important to try , I think
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