What happens when you get to the last page of a book feeling a bit confused and intrigued? One that looks not just at some horrific colonial violence but also at how the very narrative of environmental conservation is born in the bowels of White supremacy, or extreme racism and the systematic use of “science” to kill, drown, murder, stamp …
Amitav Ghosh opens The Nutmeg’s Curse with soldiers from the Dutch East India Company unleashing their savagery on the people of the Banda Islands in the 17th century. White man’s burden Colonialists’ claim to the “savage”, “wild” and “vacant” land laid the seeds of climate change, believes Ghosh. While thumbing one’s nose at scientism might be valid, when the planet …
