THE NUTMEG'S CURSE: Parables for a Planet in Crisis

Excellent Description about Ecological Imbalance.

Perhaps the best book I have read this year so far. I am an avid reader of Amitav Ghosh since the day I flipped through his Hungry Tides . I came to know about this book from a review by Prof. Sukanta Choudhury who wrote for a reputed Bengali quarterly magazine. The interconnection of the themes like colonialism , militarization , oil trade , American dominance over global petroleum products with the issue of climate change has been extrapolated in this book so well and in such an engaging prose that one could not simply take off his eyes from it. It is not that Mr. Ghosh has done it for the first time . Actually it has been his favourite theme of his literary creations. In his The Great Dearrangement , in his novels like Hungry Tides , Snake Island and even in his novels of poppy series Mr. Ghosh has shown how the recent global environmental degradation is a cautious human working. No external factors be held as responsible for this climate change which is losing constant threat to us. It is our irresponsible activities which account for this climate catastrophy . And in this book we are informed with examples from past history that how the so- called educated superpowers of the western world had started this degeneration of climate after the Industrial revolution and how still they are sticking to it. The book focuses on how a small peaceful island was wiped out from the map along it's humanity and it's Flora and fauna through an inhuman genocide of a tribal race who couldn't realise why they were killed and what for they were displaced from their place where they had been living from an indefinite period of time. The Dutch conolialists had to do so because they put human values below their greed for a rare spice namely nutmeg. Only for a spice that a whole peaceful civilization was just obliterated from the global map . What had happened to the Islanders of Malaku of Indonesia is reminiscent of what had happened once to Indian farmers who were forced to cultivate indigo instead of profitable and more necessary paddy only because the conolial British East Indian Company targeted to cater the demand of indigo in Britain and the rest of Europe after the Industrial revolution. I feel ashamed to think that some of great minds of the West like Bacon thought that for the betterment and the development of the world the people of the eastern and the African world should be killed as he thought these people with their illiteracy and ignorance were making the world stagnant. In this book Mr. Ghosh has pointed it blankly that it was the educated people of Baconian west had done unrepairable damage to the world in sacrificing people whom they held too unfit to live . All should read this book. Read it , you will have known many things fresh . The best book of the year no doubt.

5 stars🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟"Taking a nutmeg out of its fruit is like unearthing a tiny planet. Like a planet, the nutmeg is encased within a series of expanding spheres. There is, first of all, the fruit’s matte- brown skin, a kind of exosphere. Then there is the pale, perfumed flesh, growing denser toward the core, like a planet’s outer atmosphere. And when all the flesh has been stripped away, you have in your hand a ball wrapped in what could be a stratosphere of fiery, crimson clouds: it is this fragrant outer sleeve that is known as mace. Stripping off the mace reveals yet another casing, a glossy, ridged, chocolate- colored carapace, which holds the nut inside like a protective tropo sphere. Only when this shell is cracked open do you have the nut in your palm, its surface clouded by matte- brown continents floating on patches of ivory. And should you then break the nut open, you will see inside something akin to a geological structure— except that it is composed of the unique mixture of substances that produces the aroma, and the psychotropic effects, that are the nut’s very own superpowers. Like a planet, a nutmeg too can never be seen in its entirety at one time. As with the moon, or any spherical (or quasi- spherical) object, a nutmeg has two hemispheres; when one is in the light, the other must be in darkness— for one to be seen by the human eye, the other must be hidden."Along with the Pandemic, there's another global, political disease: greenwashing. Ecofascism is THE smokescreen for politicians to systemically annihilate indigenous people, manicuring landscapes for more coal, timber, uranium exploits. More industries, more war, more weapons, more power, more money. Ecofascism stemmed from the Americans and then Nazis. Again, Europeans. Fundamentally, the West/Colonialists.The advent of climate crises, nature red in tooth and claw aren't the acute symptoms of urbanization. But one conceived from parasitic Colonializations. Hence, we reap what they sowed.#thenutmegscurse #amitavghosh #parablesforaplanetincrisis #nonfiction #ecofascism #igreads #bookstagram #sgbookstagram #bookstagrammers #readersofinstagram #climatechange#globalwarming#penguinindia

Amitava Ghosh takes the reader through a journey starting in 1621 at Banda Island, Indonesia, to provide us an account of an event of diabolic proportions, a foreshadow of European colonianism, that would become the dominant world order for the next 500 years to come. In the process he lays bare the avarice and greed that was inherent in this quest of mankind to dominate and reshape the earth for the sole purpose of corporate profits. After reading 300 pages, one begins to realise that human beings do not even have the language to describe this crisis that is confronting us today, and the great storyteller that he is, he urges us to find / discover this language that humans once had and lost. This, he says, is the only way that mankind has any hope of creating a better and fulfilling world. Personally, he has helped me to look at what I see outside my window, differently. I fervently wish, I can continue to hold on to this new realisation till I die.

Great insight into European exploitation of their colonies

Ghosh has been my most favourite author since last 2 decades when I first discovered him in Delhi University's literature course. I have read all of his work and The Nutmeg's Curse is his best work in non fiction. The narrative is as gripping like a novel and brings forth different dimension to our understanding of nature, history and colonialism. It is an essential read for everyone to understand where we have gone wrong and how collectively we can make things right because we don't have a choice anymore.

Excellent piece of writing. Ghosh takes us back to the historical background of major planetary crisis of today's world.

Ghosh is an excellent writer and story teller. Although this book is non-fiction, it is a page turner. Ghosh takes climate change into the realms of history, politics and culture.

Ghosh’s latest book firmly takes him from being a writer of historical fiction to a historian presenting the chilling reality of today as well as the colonial period. However his mastery of language and story telling for example his description of the Banda islands massacre and just the nutmeg itself shines through.To me, the book is an account of how the western way of relating to the land and to nature paved the way to ecocide. It’s a different take on the enlightenment period. The irony is that as well as rationality being the seed of growth, admittedly with disrespect for non-white communities, it’s also the root of planetary destruction.He opens with an account of an episode we know little about - the extermination of the inhabitants of the beautiful but tragic Banda Islands. Situated in Indonesia’s eastern periphery these people and their land which had the misfortune to be the home of the nutmeg tree fell victim to Europe’s desire for spices and the insatiable greed for profit of the Dutch East India Company.The colonial period was a time of terra forming - taming the land with total disregard for the “brutes”. It involved a simple instrumental view of the land, no more than a factory for nutmegs. Polar opposite to how the previous inhabitants had viewed it.He closes with the modem period where the planet seems is getting its revenge. The ‘hidden forces’ which the Dutch colonists could not escape are back haunting our lives on the planet.The question that Ghosh poses is probably true now of poorer people in poorer nations that are feeling the harshness of a changing climate:“How must it feel to find yourself face to face with someone who has made it clear that he has the power to bring the world to an end, and has every intention to do so?”

I would recommend that people read this book and ponder it. But be prepared to read a book that feels much like the very well read but also lengthy and full of shifts conversation with a very provocative and thoughtful colleague. One who reads diversely and widely, who has traveled far and wide, who has had many insights but may also have at times read some slightly questionable sources. But mostly one who is a skilled story teller and does get back around to points they were making, but it may take a few hours or a few 100 pages before they finally circle back.It reminds me, perhaps not surpassingly of the best conversations I had with friends at the University of Chicago - long conversations that might touch on a multitude of disciplines and books and sources and which all participating in the discourse were treating seriously and were more often than not all familiar with even some of the most obscure of sources. And if not familiar, were taking notes to look up books and articles and films etc.So four stars because while thought provoking and important some of the diversions didn’t work as well as others for me - and there were a few that were a bit head scratching (an off handed and not mentioned again claim of aliens but that’s not the only one).So a book to read and engage with - just don’t expect it to be straightforward history it’s something else. Not fiction, not precisely just a personal memoir, but also very much an artifact of this very specific moment in time. As the pandemic continues to rage onward I suspect this book will also increasingly be hard to separate from the precise moment in time when it was written and published - in the midst of this pandemic.

Ghosh tracks western understandings of ecological and climate problems to fundamental assumptions underlying early trade, colonialism and corporate capitalism. His arguments are copiously supported by references. Unfortunately, this often seems to cherry-pick his favoured interpretation of complex narratives. This is frustrating, because I'm generally in sympathy with his radical positions. Generally, he thinks current responses to climate armageddon need to include a much less arrogant approach; one that thinks humanity isn't more important than other life forms, or indeed Gaia. In short, a 'new world order' not centred on western rationalism.

Amitav has done a good job. Banda Island and Nutmeg will never be known till I read it. He covered the climate problems very well. He forgot to mention in India Earth is called "Dharti Mata" mother earth so does NZ Maori worship land. But he forgot to mention the impact of the Population" explosion on the universe. Can't believe my eyes when I see places I grew up in and revisit after a gap of 40 years. It is all crowded where we had Jungle and wild animals walking like dogs. No one has been mentioning this problem.