The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis

by Amitav Ghosh

a nutmeg has two hemispheres; when one is in the light, the other must be in darkness—for

Most contemporary humans are completely dependent on energy that comes from long-buried carbon—and what are coal, oil, and natural gas except fossilized forms of botanical matter?

If we put aside the myth-making of modernity, in which humans are triumphantly free of material

what can be said about the role of the nutmeg tree in this story?

In this archipelago a volcano is almost always “a spiritual as well as a geothermal entity—a vengeful and angry geospirit.”

volcanoes continue to be intricately knit into the lives of Indonesians, not just culturally and spiritually, but also politically.

For many Indigenous groups, landscapes remain as vividly alive today as they ever were.

together endow their lands with multiple forms of significance that reach into their lives and shape the ways they think.”

Through these stories features of the landscape speak to people just as loudly as the human voices that historians bring to life from documentary sources.