Amitav Ghosh, award-winning novelist and essayist, joins us to talk about his latest book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, a powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic that traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. At the centre 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. 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 argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism.

Amitav Ghosh talks with Anne Lagacé Dowson about his new book, The Nutmeg’s Curse, a striking parable for our environmental crisis that speaks to the profound ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

About this event’s guests: 
Amitav Ghosh

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Climate - Amitav Ghosh: The Nutmeg’s Curse