The origin of climate change began with a spice in your kitchen cupboard. Amitav Ghosh, the writer of wonderful, gentle, sweeping epics with the power to transport readers across centuries, has chosen to use an everyday ingredient, an essential in your garam masala—an addition to every dish—nutmeg—to link climate change to colonialism.
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables For a Planet in Crisis comes with a generous sprinkle of Ghosh’s ability to conjure up events in the past and connect them with the present. The race for spices—Ghosh writes about nutmeg, a spice believed to have the power to cure plague victims—in Europe planted the flag of colonialism. Built on violence, colonialism erased people’s language, ancient ways of living, changed history, and also changed the way the earth is viewed. “Indeed, ‘subdue’ was a key word in these conquests, recurring again and again in reference to not just human beings, but also the terrain,’’ writes Ghosh. From this processes of subduing and muting, the land—to make it profitable—was born the idea of ‘nature’ as an inert entity, a concept that would in time become the basic tenet of what might be called ‘official modernity’.”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 07, 2021 من THE WEEK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 07, 2021 من THE WEEK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
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EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
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Garden by the sea
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RECRUITERS SPEAK
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MORAL COMPASS
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COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI