Indian-Origin Historian Sunil Amrit Wins British Academy Book Prize

About the Award

  • Indian-origin historian Sunil Amrit, 46, has won the British Academy Book Prize for his work "The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years."
  • The award, given every year, is for the top non-fiction book from anywhere in the world and comes with a prize money of £25,000.

About Sunil Amrit

  • Sunil Amrit was born in Kenya and is now a professor of history at Yale University in the USA.
  • His South Indian parents brought him up in Singapore before he graduated from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

About the Book

  • The judges called "The Burning Earth" a book that should be read by everyone, as it deals with the world climate crisis.
  • In his book, Amrit talks about how human activities and environmental changes are intertwined in the past five centuries.
  • He clarifies that human welfare and the environment are two inseparable concerns, and an appreciation of their interconnection is crucial to meeting the world's challenges today.