'Stunningly written ... This global history of the environment of the last 500 years ... shows
that the other side of the coin called progress is destruction. Amrith writes like the finest
novelist' - Neel Mukherjee New Statesman Books of the Year 'Dazzling... brilliant...
exactly the kind of history that we need on our crisis-ridden planet' - Tom Simpson TLS 'A
must-read... an engaging guide with a lyrical style and a talent for storytelling...
beautifully and clearly written' - Michael Marshall New Scientist 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 Spanish 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.
Amrith's 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.
