From a MacArthur "Genius," a bold new perspective on the history of Asia, highlighting the long quest to tame its watersAsia's history has been shaped by her waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia's history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas -- and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them. Looking out from India, he shows how dreams and fears of water shap...

**Winner of the 2025 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for NonfictionLonglisted for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardOne of The New Yorker's "Essential Reads" of 2024 • One of NPR's "Books We Love" for 2024"[An] epic exploration of human innovation and destruction." —Josie Glausiusz, NatureA brilliant, paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, over the l...

This set of essays analyses the work of Isabel Hofmeyr, globally recognised as one of South Africa’s foremost literary and Indian Ocean scholars. The essays elucidate Hofmeyr’s path-breaking studies of transnational histories of the book, African print cultures, and cultural circulations in the Indian Ocean world.This book draws together reflective and analytical essays by renowned intellectuals from around the world who critically engage with the work of one of the global South’s ...

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2024In this magisterial book, historian 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...