Indian-origin historian Sunil Amrith wins British Academy Book Prize

Indian-origin historian Sunil Amrith has won this year’s prestigious British Academy Book Prize for his latest work, The Burning Earth - An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years . The £25,000 award recognizes outstanding non-fiction writing grounded in exceptional research in the humanities and social sciences.

Amrith, 46, a Professor of History at Yale University, was born in Kenya to South Indian parents, grew up in Singapore, and graduated from the University of Cambridge in England.

The Burning Earth traces the interconnections between human history and environmental transformation over the past five centuries. Among its vivid accounts, Amrith explores British gold mining in South Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, showing how industrialization and colonial exploitation caused severe environmental damage and immense human suffering.

“I’ve sometimes been asked whether The Burning Earth is a bleak book,” Amrith said via live video from the US. “It details harm and suffering, both human and environmental, and shows how closely they are intertwined. But it also highlights paths not taken, forgotten ideas, and past movements whose legacies may inspire a more hopeful and sustainable way of living together on this planet.”

Professor Rebecca Earle, chair of the judging panel, described the book as “a magisterial account of the interconnections between human history and environmental transformation. It is vivid, beautifully written, and essential for understanding the origins of today’s climate crisis.”

The award carries a subtle irony - a British institution honoring a work that critically examines British colonial actions, such as resource extraction and exploitation. For many Indian readers, this irony is easy to relate to, similar to the emotional impact of the film RRR , which dramatizes resistance to British oppression.

Established in 2013, the British Academy Book Prize honors non-fiction works published in the UK and available in English, recognizing authors worldwide for research that deepens understanding of the world. san J Smith, President of the British Academy, said: “This book exemplifies the combination of rigorous research, insight, and compelling writing that our prize seeks to celebrate. It encourages reflection on history’s lessons, even when those lessons reveal past injustices.”

The other five shortlisted books, each receiving £1,000, were The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple; The Baton and The Cross: Russia's Church from