The Burning Earth

The Burning Earth, which is nothing short of a history of the world, 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

The Burning Earth is 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

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 Amrith’s 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

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. Every page challenges us to conceive the future we want for the planet...and ourselves

Kate Orff, author of Toward an Urban Ecology

Memorable and mesmerizing. Sunil Amrith has gifted us a page-turner of a book, written with passionate lucidity. Historically deep and geographically generous, The Burning Earth dramatizes human freedom’s profound dependence on the health and integrity of our environments. 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

Ranging from the Mongol expansion to contemporary climate change, Amrith has given us the most readable global environmental history yet. With an eye for the telling detail combined with a sense of the big picture, this book brings environmental perspectives together with such major world historical themes as empire, freedom and energy. A towering achievement and a joy to read

J.R. McNeill

[A] magisterial historical review [....] 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

[The Burning Earth] is an environmentally focused chronicle of the eras of colonization and industrialization that probes the dual natures of war and resource extraction, ecological degradation and human mass migration, and technological improvement and planetary devastation

Publisher's Weekly

A far-reaching survey of the central role played by human needs and desires in the destruction of Earth

Kirkus Reviews

An epic exploration of human innovation and destruction [which] examines how the poor and powerless have fought back — time and again — against those seeking to profit from the planet’s natural resources

Josie Glausiusz, Nature

What sets Amrith’s history apart is that he gives himself no fixed place to stand. He refuses to occupy a Eurocentric viewpoint, or any other developing instead a planetary awareness… Amrith’s panopticon-like vision is one we need to adopt as we must assume responsibility for the health of the planet… [his] reading is astonishing

Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman

A must-read history of our environmental crisis... [Amrith is an] engaging guide, with a lyrical style and a talent for storytelling... It is beautifully and clearly written, well-researched and finds new perspectives on much-discussed issues. Strongly recommended

Michael Marshall, New Scientist

Sunil Amrith’s Burning Earth, which is nothing short of a history of the world, 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

Jill Lepore, Advance praise