Climate change has deep historical roots. Amitav Ghosh explores how capitalism and colonialism fit

Amitav Ghosh is the author of 20 historical fiction and non-fiction books. The thinker and writer has written extensively on the legacies of colonialism, violence and extractivism. His most famous works explore migration, globalisation and commercial violence and conquest during the colonial period, against the backdrop of the opium trade in the 1800s.

Economics professor Imraan Valodia and climate and inequality researcher Julia Taylor answer questions about the significance of his work.

What has Ghosh contributed to our understanding of the root causes of climate change?
Julia Taylor (JT): In Ghosh’s recent non-fiction book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, he used his storytelling prowess to outline the roots of climate change within two systems of power and oppression: imperialism and capitalism.

Imperialism is the expansion of influence over other countries through military force and colonisation. It usually entails the destruction of the environment to support imperial interests.

Capitalism is the dominant economic system where ownership of the means of production (industry) is private. Private actors are driven by profit and growth, which has relied on combustion of fossil fuels.

What Ghosh makes clear is that violence and destruction of the environment are key to capitalism, as they were to colonialism.

Imraan Valodia (IV): Ghosh challenges us to think...

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