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

'Sunil Amrith has given us the most readable global environmental history yet... a towering achievement and a joy to read' - J. R. McNeill

'The Burning Earth is as beautiful as it is indispensable, as breathtaking as it is devastating. It answers questions most of us have been too daft even to ask. It will set you on fire' - Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

'A devastating panorama of human folly, a poetic meditation on how the search for freedom from nature undermined the very conditions for life on earth. Beautifully written, Sunil Amriths global and long-term view is crucial to understanding the environmental predicaments we are in, and, perhaps, to restore a distraught world. A must read for anyone concerned with the state of the planet' - Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton

'Memorable and mesmerizing. Sunil Amrith has gifted us a page-turner of a book, written with passionate lucidity' - Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor


In this paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and Empire, of genocide and eco-cide, of the expansion of human freedom and its costs. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich diversity of primary sources, he reckons with the ruins of Portuguese silver mining in Peru, British gold mining in South Africa, and oil extraction in Central Asia. He explores the railways and highways that brought humans to new terrains of battle against each other and against nature. Amriths account of the ways in which the First and Second World Wars involved the massive mobilization not only of men, but of other natural resources from around the globe, provides an essential new way of understanding war as an irreversible reshaping of the planet. He also reveals the reality of migration as consequence of environmental harm.

The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth. Amrith relates, on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic vibrant with stories, characters, and vivid images in which humanity might find the collective wisdom to save itself.