This is one of those books that both attracts and repels. The Indian writer Amitav Ghosh is a prominent representative of the post-colonial movement. And in this work too, he emphasizes the brutality with which Western hegemony was established from the 16th century onwards. The book actually starts with the massacre that the Dutch inflicted in 1621 on the island of Banda, in the Indonesian archipelago, then one of the few areas where nutmeg could be extracted (hence the title).

Amitav repeats the well-known mantras of postcolonialism: the link with capitalism and market thinking, the Western sense of superiority, the blind spots of the Enlightenment and modernity, and so on. But he gradually, in a few circumferential movements, adds a deeper layer to it. Namely, that Western thinking is pre-eminently characterized by a mechanistic view of the world: the view that everything outside humans is a 'resource', because dumb, non-animated, and therefore subordinate, manipulable and exploitable. In history this is illustrated again and again in what he calls an obsession with extermination with 'terraforming': for instance the extermination of the Natives in the America's, and the construction of a (capitalist) economy based almost entirely on fossil fuels, which in the meantime threatens the survival of humans and the earth itself. For him, the current climate problem and the erosion of biodiversity are therefore the result of this ruthless Western approach (which has now been adopted almost all over the world), and which is inextricably linked to the aggression against past and present indigenous peoples. It is a thesis for which there are certainly valid arguments, although it is also fairly one-sided at the same time, as if no other cultures carry such a brutal view of nature and of other people.

So, in terms of structure and views, there certainly is a unity in this book, but Ghosh's argument often tends to meander and wander off on side paths. And sometimes he obviously oversells himself. Towards the end, for example, there is a (justifiably) heavy outburst against eco-fascism (forms of eco-fundamentalism, for Ghosh mainly those directed against indigenous communities), but he lapses into a rather simplistic argument against science in general.

The most contentious part of this book is where he pleads for the reintroduction of a vitalist view of the world: referring to how indigenous peoples interact with their environment, and especially with an animated nature. There are certainly valid elements for that too, but Ghosh generalizes this in such a way that he attributes to nature, the planet (unsurprisingly, he adheres to Lovelock's Gaia theory) and the universe an almost sacred, independent character. All 'things' tell their own narrative, is his thesis, and in an allegorical way that is a justified claim, but he clearly forgets that narratives always are made/interpreted by humans, and therefore never stand on their own. It is a philosophical fallacy that partly underlies the own narrative 'clou' of this book: a reference to the silent/secret force in nature (based on the book by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus book 'The Hidden Force', 1900).

In short, I do have some issues with this book by Ghosh, although I do acknowledge that it contains some valuable insights. I would say: read this to be stimulated by numerous interesting and relevant insights about colonialism, climate change, Western mechanistic thinking, etcetera, but also keep a critical distance. ( )

Utter unabashed nonsense. Will make you into a denier. ( )

"The Nutmeg's Curse" is an excellent and interesting book by Amitav Ghosh. I am familiar with the history of the nutmeg, and the depredations of the Western countries. It was only a few years later, however, when I started reading about the industrial revolution, did I understand the thought of the Western man 'conquering nature'.
I have seen this colonial mindset in the way many writers speak of the challenges and opportunities in climate change.
Amitav Ghosh's genius lies in his ability to weave various strands into a compelling story, which informs, engages, and warns.
At no point, however, do you feel you are reading a depressing book. There are things, which came as a surprise to me: military spending and its impact on climate change, for instance.

There are no angels in this situation.

Read the book. ( )