The Nutmeg's Curse

Amitav Ghosh’s book is a fresh take on the existential crisis of global warming. Ghosh argues that the planetary crisis that we find ourselves in is a by-product of Western colonialism. Ghosh makes a persuading case of how Earth has slowly been equated to a mute lifeless resource. The narrative of the nutmeg becomes a fable for our environmental catastrophe in Ghosh's hands, revealing how earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels have always been entangled with human history.

According to Ghosh, the Banda islands were the only site on Earth where nutmeg was farmed before the 16th century. The Dutch then invaded the island to safeguard its production, killing thousands in the process. It was not long before European traders became conquerors, and the indigenous Bandanese communities - and the islands themselves - would pay a high price for access to this precious commodity.

Ghosh highlights how humans have embarked on a war of terraforming ( altering large geographical spaces ) where entire populations are subjected to forms of violence that included massive biological and ecological disruptions. The right to terraform was an essential part of the settler identity, and this notion was born from the European perception of what constituted a proper use of the environment. However, as Ghosh points out Indigenous understanding of terraforming was and is far more sophisticated than those of today’s techno-futurists. He states that our zeal to terraform has led to Earth terraforming in reverse; pushing back against human exploitation in a manner largely unknown to us.

The exploitation of the Earth is also centered on the colonist practice of renaming and dehumanizing those being colonized. The idea of reducing species to their taxonomic category invented by Linnaeus in 1758, further severs our connection with the living world. Author Amitav Ghosh frames historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today, writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests. He also interweaves discussions on everything from climate change and the migrant crisis to the animist spirituality of indigenous communities around the world.

Ghosh argues that colonial capitalism is founded on conquest, slavery, and race. While colonialism may have faded, our singular conquest of resource gathering keeps us enslaved and divided by race to keep the wheels of capitalism turning. The Nutmeg's Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and reveals the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

The Nutmeg's Curse reimagines modernity as a centuries-long campaign of omnicide against the spirits of the earth, rivers, trees, and even the humble nutmeg, while also making a passionate case for the critical importance of vitalist philosophy and non-human narrative. Climate change is considered in the West to be a technical problem that can be solved with clean technology. However, it is seen as a geopolitical and inequitable concern in the rest of the globe. Climate change geopolitics are never mentioned in meetings like the COP, which are focused on technocratic and technological solutions. To fully comprehend the world-devouring logic that drives ecological collapse, Ghosh urges readers to confront war, colonialism, and genocide. Although it is widely acknowledged that the climate issue is multifaceted, discussions about it are mostly focused on its scientific, technological, and economic aspects.

Ghosh never fails to show us the mirror, whether it's the glorified traditions of omnicide, the moral vindication sought through religion throughout history, the morbid individualism imbibed as a virtue, the irresistible vanity of racial, classist, and casteist hierarchies, or the human audacity to claim victory over Nature. Ghosh has written a remarkable, visionary appeal to new forms of human life in the ‘Anthropocene’, with wide historical perspective and astonishing insight. Ghosh postulates, that a necessary first step towards addressing global warming is to build a narrative where humans acknowledge their mutual dependence not just on each other but on all forms of life.

Ghosh concludes most impressively, “ Much if not most of humanity today lives as colonists once did viewing the. Earth is as though it were an inert entity that exists primarily to exploit and profit from, with the aid of technology and science. Yet even the sciences are now struggling to keep pace with the hidden forces that are manifesting themselves in climatic events of unprecedented and uncanny violence.”

The impending planetary catastrophe begs the resumption of our until now silent conversation with nonhuman voices that inhabit the planet. The landscapes are neither inert nor mute but imbued with vitality. This is a timely and compelling work that offers a distinctive perspective on tackling climate change.