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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.
List of Figures
1. A Lamp Falls
2. “Burn Everywhere Their Dwellings”
3. “The Fruits of the Nutmeg Have Died”
4. Terraforming
5. “We Shall All Be Gone Shortly”
6. Bonds of Earth
7. Monstrous Gaia
8. Fossilized Forests
9. Choke Points
10. Father of All Things
11. Vulnerabilities
12. A Fog of Numbers
13. War by Another Name
14. “The Divine Angel of Discontent”
15. Brutes
16. “The Falling Sky”
17. Utopias
18. A Vitalist Politics
19. Hidden Forces
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford, has taught at a number of institutions and written for many magazines. The first novel in the Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. In 2015, Amitav Ghosh was named as a finalist of the Man Booker International Prize. In 2016 he wrote The Great Derangement.
"In this brilliant book, aflame with insight and moral power, Ghosh shows that in the history of the nutmeg lies the path to our planetary crisis, twisting through the horrors of empire and racial capitalism. The Nutmeg's Curse brings to life alternative visions of human flourishing in consonance with the rest of nature – and reminds us how great are the vested interests that obstruct them."
– Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters
"What do you do when the subject matter of life on this planet seems to lack [...] life? Your read The Nutmeg's Curse, which eschews the leaden language of climate expertise in favor of the re-animating powers of mythology, etymology, and cosmology. Ghosh challenges readers to reckon with war, empire, and genocide in order to fully grasp the world-devouring logics that underpin ecological collapse. We owe a great debt to his brilliant mind, avenging pen, and huge soul. Do not miss this book – and above all, do not tell yourself that you already know its contents, because you don't."
– Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
"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."
– Roy Scranton, author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization
