The Idea of Nature public lecture series presents: "The Burning Earth"

The Idea of Nature public lecture series presents: Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History, and Professor of the Environment, Yale University - "The Burning Earth". Free and open to the public. There is a free reception and a brief Q and A session afterwards, and free parking is available. Attending students may be able to receive extra credit.

Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and empire, of genocide and eco-cide, of an extraordinary expansion of human freedom and its planetary costs. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich diversity of primary sources, he reckons with the ruins of Portuguese silver mining in Peru, British gold mining in South Africa, and oil extraction in Central Asia. He explores the railroads and highways that brought humans to new terrains of battle against each other and against stubborn nature. Amrith’s account of the ways in which the First and Second World Wars involved the massive mobilization not only of men, but of other natural resources from around the globe, provides an essential new way of understanding war as an irreversible reshaping of the planet. So, too, does his book reveal the reality of migration as a consequence of environmental harm. The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth.

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History and Vice Provost for International Affairs at Yale University. Amrith’s research focuses on the movements of people and the ecological processes that have connected South and Southeast Asia, and has expanded to encompass global environmental history. Amrith is the recipient of many prizes including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Infosys Prize in Humanities. Amrith’s new book,The Burning Earth, is an environmental history of the modern world that foregrounds the experiences of the Global South. It was named a 2024 “essential read” by The New Yorker, a “book we love” 2024 by NPR, and was a finalist for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson prize. It is being translated into ten languages.

The goal of the The Idea of Nature lecture series is to promote interdisciplinary inquiry about the environment and to foster dialogue across the campus and community. Dr. Samantha Harvey founded The Idea of Nature in 2012. She joined the faculty of the Department of English Literature at Boise State University in 2010. She received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in English Literature and her B.A. in English and the Study of Religion from Harvard University. Dr. Harvey's teaching and research interests include nineteenth-century British poetry and prose, transatlantic Romanticism, and literature and the environment.

This lecture is sponsored in part by: The Nature Conservancy, Southern Idaho Mushroom Club, Ada County Soil and Water Conservation District, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Idaho Humanities Council, Boise State University's College of Business, College of Education, College of Health Sciences, School of the Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English Literature and The Humanities and Social Sciences Initiative.

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Co-hosted with: School of the Environment

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