Published on October 25 , 2025
Delhi, India
In a resounding affirmation of scholarship’s power to illuminate our world’s most pressing crises, Indian-origin historian Sunil Amrith has clinched the prestigious 2025 British Academy Book Prize for his masterful work, The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. Awarded on October 22, 2025, at a glittering ceremony in London’s British Academy, this £25,000 honor celebrates Amrith’s panoramic exploration of how human endeavors—from colonial conquests to industrial revolutions—have scorched and reshaped our planet. At a time when climate urgency dominates global headlines, Amrith’s narrative stands as both a cautionary chronicle and a beacon of forgotten sustainable wisdom, reminding us that history holds keys to a more harmonious coexistence.
Prize Overview and Selection Process
The British Academy Book Prize, established in 2013, stands as the UK’s premier accolade for non-fiction in the humanities and social sciences, spotlighting works that deepen public understanding of global cultures, histories, and societies. Valued at £25,000 for the winner (with £1,000 each for shortlisted authors), it draws from over 230 submissions published in English between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025.
- Eligibility and Scope: Open to authors worldwide, emphasizing rigorous research, accessible prose, and interdisciplinary insights that bridge academia and everyday readers.
- 2025 Shortlist Highlights: Amrith’s triumph edged out five stellar contenders, including The Baton and The Cross: Russia’s Church from Pagans to Putin by Lucy Ash, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple, Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen Everill, Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health by Sophie Harman, and Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story by Graeme Lawson.
- Jury Verdict: Chaired by historian Rebecca Earle, the panel lauded the shortlist as a “celebration of scholarship that connects the past and present.” Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation and Ford Foundation, the prize underscores the British Academy’s mission to foster evidence-informed narratives on contemporary challenges.
Past winners, such as Ross Perlin’s Language City in 2024, reflect the award’s commitment to diverse voices tackling migration, ecology, and cultural preservation.
Author Profile: Sunil Amrith’s Journey from Global Roots to Yale’s Helm
At 47, Sunil Amrith embodies the transnational spirit that infuses his writing. Born in Kenya to South Indian parents, raised in multicultural Singapore, and educated at the University of Cambridge (where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees), Amrith now holds the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professorship in History at Yale University, with a joint appointment in the Yale School of the Environment. His career trajectory—from teaching at Birkbeck, University of London, to Harvard—mirrors his scholarly focus on migration, empire, and environmental flux.
| Milestone | Details |
|---|---|
| Early Influences | Shaped by Singapore’s blend of cultures and histories of displacement, fueling works on oceans, monsoons, and human mobility. |
| Key Publications | Five acclaimed books, including Crossing the Bay of Bengal (on maritime migrations) and Unruly Waters (on South Asia’s hydrological upheavals). |
| Notable Honors | MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2017) for migration-climate intersections; 2024 Fukuoka Academic Prize; 2025 Toynbee Prize for global history contributions. |
Amrith’s oeuvre transforms dense archives into “page-turning prose,” as judges noted, making complex global tales resonate with universal human stakes.
Book Summary: Weaving 500 Years of Human-Planet Entanglement
The Burning Earth, published by Penguin Random House’s Allen Lane imprint, is no mere timeline—it’s an epic indictment and elegy for our shared ecological inheritance. Spanning five centuries and six continents, Amrith dissects the “interconnections between human history and environmental transformation,” revealing how ambition has ignited planetary infernos.
- Core Narrative Arc: From the 16th-century conquest of the Americas (unleashing ecological invasions) to British gold mining’s scars in South Africa, the Black Death’s demographic ripples, and World War II’s industrial cataclysms, the book traces humanity’s escalating imprint.
- Thematic Pillars: Colonial exploitation as an environmental accelerant; industrialization’s toxic legacies; forgotten indigenous practices offering blueprints for resilience; and the inseparability of societal upheavals from natural shifts.
- Methodological Brilliance: Drawing on multilingual archives—from Spanish conquistador logs to Chinese climate records—Amrith crafts a “global perspective” that avoids Eurocentrism, blending vivid vignettes with data-driven analysis.
- Contemporary Resonance: In an era of record heatwaves and biodiversity loss, it unmasks the “origins of today’s climate crisis,” urging readers to reclaim “paths not taken” like communal land stewardship.
As Amrith reflects, the book spotlights “both the damage caused by human activity and the forgotten ideas and sustainable ways of living that once existed,” transforming despair into actionable hope.
Critical Acclaim and Judge Perspectives
The jury’s unanimous choice elevates The Burning Earth as a “magisterial account… vivid in detail and beautifully written.” Professor Rebecca Earle emphasized: “Sunil Amrith is a remarkable scholar whose global perspective reveals the impact of the environment on human history, as well as our impact on the environment. In fact, as he shows, it’s not really possible to separate these two.”
- Broader Endorsements: British Academy President Professor Susan J. Smith hailed it as a pinnacle of “evidence-informed insight, well-honed ideas, and great writing,” ideal for the prize’s ethos.
- Peer Echoes: Fellow historians praise its activist edge—Amrith bridges “archives and activism,” positioning nonfiction as a tool for grappling with “what it means to be human—and how we should live in the world today.”
- Impact Metrics: Amid 2025’s COP30 buzz, the book has sparked discussions on interdisciplinary climate history, with early reviews calling it “essential reading” for policymakers and eco-activists.
This win reinforces the prize’s role in amplifying voices that “deepen understanding of our world,” especially as global temperatures climb.
Amrith’s Reflections: From Bleak Realities to Hopeful Horizons
In his acceptance speech via live video from the US, Amrith addressed the book’s perceived somber tone head-on: “I’ve sometimes been asked whether The Burning Earth is a bleak book. And yes, it contains much harm and suffering. But it also highlights alternative paths not taken—ideas and movements that may have failed but left lasting legacies, and more sustainable technologies.”
- Vision for the Future: He envisions readers mining history for “seeds of inspiration for a more hopeful and less violent way of living together on this planet, which we share with each other and with so much other life that we depend on.”
- Personal Drive: Rooted in his migratory upbringing, Amrith sees environmental history as inseparable from human stories: “Nonfiction can appeal to the heart as much as to the head, bringing the whole breadth of human experience to readers.”
His words resonate as a clarion call, blending scholarly poise with urgent optimism.
