The Nutmeg's Curse

Taking the exploitation of the Nutmeg as a parable for the logic of extraction that precipitated our current planetary crisis, Ghosh’s book draws the direct historical connections that have upended so many worlds and now threatens to do the same to us all.

Climate change becomes the present manifestation of Western colonialism, with its deeply entrenched antipathy to vitalism, animism, and all the living entities that make up this precious home, Earth. Ghosh explains how our very survival depends now on the respect for and inspiration of Indigenous knowledge of ecologies.

His writing is pure with moral clarity and urgency,… show more.

Mr. Ghosh beautifully links the pandemic, a changing climate, immigration, and Black Lives Matter protests.

He opens by telling one history of nutmeg. He tells of colonialism, beginning with fear and murder. He tells of how people lost their home to others’ violence and desire for riches. Murder, colonialism, international markets are all grounded in colonizers’ efforts to dominate the earth. Mr. Ghosh’s heartbreaking book inspired me, encouraging me to believe we must expand what we define as governing a changing climate.

The dominant story of improving changing climate centers on clean energy, our rights to a better environment, and… show more.

Amitav Ghosh is an outstanding novelist who has now written two great books about global environmental change. His previous work, The Great Derangement, looks at the relationship between colonialism, the humanities, and the climate crisis. Now, The Nutmeg’s Curse expands that exploration provides more detail and depth, and covers the historical era of European expansion, paying close attention to how that process irrevocably and dangerously changed how we perceive the natural world. In so doing, Ghosh covers some of the most pertinent issues of contemporary environmental learning—race, equity, diversity, inclusion, and migration.

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