The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years

Review

"As beautiful as it is indispensable, as breathtaking as it is devastating. The Burning Earth answers questions most of us have been too daft even to ask. It will set you on fire." ― Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States"[A] magisterial historical review.… [Sunil] Amrith writes from an environmental history perspective, and with an impassioned sense of social justice, about a wide range of subjects, including agriculture, assassination, colonialization, disease, freedom, hunger, politics, pollution, slavery, urbanization, and war." ― Lawrence D. Meinert, Science"Sunil Amrith’s chronicle is as compassionate as it is riveting.… [A] resolute call for integrating our own vulnerable ‘creatureliness’ into a road toward repair." ― Neda Ulaby, NPR"We have reached planetary crisis.… Only by understanding how we have treated the planet in the past can we understand our future." ― Henry Mance, Financial Times"Whether the casting off of planetary bonds is literal or figurative, the prospect is delicious, and as Amrith so convincingly shows, it has animated the powerful for more than a thousand years. Yet the costs of the attempt are steep, and they are ever harder to escape." ― Michelle Nijhuis, New York Review"Both dizzying and deracinating, but also, even in its grimness, quite thrilling.… Amrith’s panopticon-like vision is one we need to adopt as we must assume responsibility for the health of the planet." ― Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman"Written with passion and insight, this is a highly readable grand narrative illustrated by vignettes from across the globe." ― David Reynolds, New Statesman, "Best Books of 2024""This bleak, stunningly written book shows that the other side of the coin called progress is destruction. Amrith writes like the finest novelist, and his grasp of a mind-boggling expanse of material is deeply impressive." ― Neel Mukherjee, New Statesman, "Best Books of 2024""Sunil Amrith’s The Burning Earth takes us on a gloomy and bleak tour of how, in the name of progress, Western empires made a mess of everything.… [B]eautifully written." ― Michael Ledger-Lomas, Jacobin"A must-read history of our environmental crisis." ― Michael Marshall, New Scientist"Devastating and essential.… In Amrith’s telling, human and environmental consequences are inseparable." ― Priscilla Long, American Scholar"The Burning Earth is a welcome complement to important historical critiques of social injustice and inequality by authors like Howard Zinn and Eduardo Galeano." ― Ramin Skibba, Undark"As a historian, Sunil Amrith provides readers with a narrative that spans continents and centuries, calling out exploiters with compassion for the exploited. And if all history is environmental history, we all are authors of this next critical chapter." ― John Yunker, EcoLit Books"The history that Amrith covers is uncompromising." ― Peter Frankopan, Spectator"In this expansive book, a historian places the earth’s ecological plight in the context of human exploitation [and] recognizes the inseparability of environmental distress and political, economic, and social factors." ― The New Yorker"A vital addition to human historical texts and to climate nonfiction." ― Erica Ezeifedi, Book Riot"A marvelously erudite and wide-ranging account of the steadily accelerating ecological transformation of the planet since the twelfth century. An indispensable contribution to both environmental and global history." ― Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable"A devastating panorama of human folly, a poetic meditation on how the search for freedom from nature undermined the very conditions for life on Earth.… A must-read for anyone concerned with the state of the planet." ― Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism"A wrenching, clear-eyed reckoning with humanity’s extractive relationship to the natural world that plants seeds of insight on how we can shift to an ethos of regeneration and repair." ― Kate Orff, author of Toward an Urban Ecology"Memorable and mesmerizing.… Amrith’s capacious insights and his worldly perspective make this a standout title for anyone interested in the long arc of environmental justice." ― Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor"The most readable global environmental history yet.… [W]ith such major world historical themes as empire, freedom and energy. A towering achievement and a joy to read." ― J. R. McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World"Impressive.… [A]n elegant and sweeping look at how humanity has brought itself to the brink." ― Publishers Weekly, starred review"A far-reaching survey of the central role played by human needs and desires in the destruction of Earth." ― Kirkus Reviews"[An] expansive book…Amrith recognizes the inseparability of environmental distress and political, economic, and social factors." ― New York Times"The Burning Earth is a global history of the human destruction of the Earth in the pursuit of profit, as well as a sweeping account of how major technological advances have both improved and decimated human life. It’s a richly detailed story that tries to explain how we got to where we are today, so imperiled by the impacts of climate change, while also offering the possibility of new ways of flourishing on the planet." ― Lisa Prevost, Yale News

Jill Lepore, author of

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History and Professor of the Environment at Yale University. He is the author of five books and recipient of multiple awards, including a MacArthur “genius” fellowship and the 2024 Fukuoka Prize.