Sunil Amrith won the 2025 British Academy Book Prize for The Burning Earth, a sweeping environmental history that connects five centuries of human society with the changing climate.
The judges highlighted its global scope and argued that the book belongs in urgent conversations about history, evidence, and today’s climate crisis.
Amrith, a Yale historian, accepted the honor and addressed concerns that the narrative reads as bleak.
He said the book surfaced neglected ideas and movements that revealed alternative paths, and he emphasized that environmental and human histories are deeply intertwined, a theme central to both his scholarship and the prize citation.
What does the win reveal about climate history and public debate
The award signaled that environmental history has moved closer to the center of the public discussion, where history, policy, science, and lived experience increasingly intersect.
The judges described the work as a magisterial account of intertwined human and environmental change, a framing that placed historical causation alongside scientific data and contemporary policy.
By honoring a five-century narrative, the prize underscored the value of deep time in policy thinking, where long arcs explain today’s risks and unequal impacts.
Readers encountered a record that linked social transformations to resource extraction, migration, health, and technology, clarifying how present choices evolved from accumulated structures and incentives.
Did you know?
The British Academy Book Prize, formerly known as the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, has been honoring global cultural understanding since 2013.
How did The Burning Earth stand out on the shortlist
The book stood out for its narrative range and the clarity with which it connected local histories to world-scale transformations.
The judges emphasized its research depth and readability, a combination that helped it reach audiences beyond academic circles and into civic discussions about responsibility and repair.
It prevailed against a competitive field, including works by prominent historians who explored ancient exchange networks and modern institutions.
The panel highlighted how the book balanced synthesis with case-driven detail, allowing scenes from different continents to serve a single analytical argument about power and the environment.
What arguments does the book make about power and the environment
The narrative argued that colonization, industrialization, and modern state projects reorganized land, labor, and energy in ways that reshaped climate and vulnerability.
It traced how extraction zones were built, how risk shifted onto communities with less power, and how technological choices favored throughput over resilience.
The book followed the feedback loop between environmental shocks and political decisions, showing how crises often accelerated entrenched projects.
It also examined paths not taken, including smaller-scale technologies, social movements, and knowledge traditions that pointed toward sustainability but lost support as growth regimes consolidated.
How does Amrith’s global background inform the narrative
Amrith’s biography bridged regions shaped by empire, migration, and trade, which informed the archive choices and the story’s connective tissue.
His training and work across Asia, Europe, and the United States enabled comparisons that avoided narrow national frames, while keeping ground-level experiences visible through case studies.
The book transitions from the conquest of the Americas to mining in southern Africa, and from pandemics to wartime mobilization, with each scene chosen to illustrate how environmental change intersected with shifting political economies.
The approach favored relational history, where events in one region altered possibilities in others through markets, policy, and knowledge exchange.
What recognition and impact has the book already earned
Since its publication, the book has garnered significant recognition from scholarly and literary communities, including honors for nonfiction and fostering global understanding.
It appeared on best of lists that spotlighted rigorous yet accessible narrative, which helped the book reach readers who may not usually pick up environmental history.
The new prize is likely to expand the book’s classroom adoption and policy relevance, and the debate it invites may extend into municipal planning, corporate risk, and civic climate education.
The author’s remarks suggested a hope that readers draw energy from overlooked histories of repair, innovation, and justice.
Looking ahead, the prize has positioned environmental history as a practical tool for decision-makers who face complex risks and competing timelines.
The book offered a map of how choices traveled across centuries, inviting readers to weigh different futures by examining how power, technology, and ecology intersected in the past.
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