The Book Prize Index

The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years

Sunil Amrith

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2024 A brilliant, paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, over the last 500 years.

Nature & EnvironmentNature & Environment · medium confidenceNature & Environment81 signalsLlm Classifier: Nature & Environment -> Nature & EnvironmentKeyword Classifier: Arts & Criticism -> Arts & CriticismTopic Classifier: Essays & Cultural Criticism -> Arts & CriticismEssays & Cultural Criticism

Award History

2 wins · 3 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
British Academy Book PrizeMajor2025WinnerOfficial source
Dayton Literary Peace Prize: Nonfiction2025WinnerSecondary source
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award2025FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (3)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    Over the last 500 years, humanity has reshaped the planet while the planet has reshaped human history, and this mutual transformation drives a global environmental history.

    Model confidence 55%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    45 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 42%.