Burning Earth

Burning Earth is a global history by historian Sunil Amrith that covers the last 500 years. It traces how humanity has reshaped the planet and how the planet in turn has shaped human history.

Amrith starts from the agricultural innovations that vastly increased food production and made it possible for billions of people to live and thrive. He then shows how each new technology also gave people greater power to exploit one another and the natural world with devastating cruelty. He pairs the stories of environment and empire, genocide and ecocide, and human freedom and planetary cost.

Through this environmental lens, the book recasts war as a massive reshaping of the earth, carried out by mobilizing natural resources on a global scale, including human beings. It also explains patterns of migration as consequences of environmental harm. The narrative covers a very wide span and draws on rich archival sources, with many characters, stories and vivid images.