The nutmeg's curse : parables for a planet in crisis / Amitav Ghosh.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021Description: 339 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780226815459
- 0226815455
- Parables for a planet in crisis
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 363.7387 G427 | Available | 33111010868137 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
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.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-325) and index.
Lamp Falls -- Burn Everywhere Their Dwellings -- Fruits of the Nutmeg Have Died -- Terraforming -- We Shall All Be Gone Shortly -- Bonds of Earth -- Monstrous Gaia -- Fossilized Forests -- Choke Points -- Father of All Things -- Vulnerabilities -- Fog of Numbers -- War by Another Name -- Divine Angel of Discontent -- Brutes -- Falling Sky -- Utopias -- Vitalist Politics -- Hidden forces
"The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis frames climate change and the Anthropocene as the culmination of a history that begins with the discovery of the New World and of the sea route to the Indian Ocean. Ghosh makes the case that the political dynamics of climate change today are rooted in the centuries-old geopolitical order that was constructed by Western colonialism. This argument is set within a broader narrative about human entanglements with botanical matter-spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels-and the continuities that bind human history with these earthly materials. Ghosh also writes explicitly against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, and international immigration debates, among other pressing issues, framing these ongoing crises in a new way by showing how the colonialist extractive mindset is directly connected to the deep inequality we see around us today"-- Provided by publisher.