Sunil Amrith
Who won? The 2025 prize has been awarded to Sunil Amrith for his book The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. Amrith is a historian and environmental scholar; he holds the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professorship of History and is a professor in the School of the Environment at Yale University. About the prize The British Academy Book Prize is an annual award (since 2013) that celebrates non-fiction writing in the humanities and social sciences: books that are grounded in rigorous research and “shine a light on the connections and divisions that shape cultural identity worldwide.”
The 2025 winner receives a prize of £25,000. The shortlisted books (each receiving £1,000) in 2025 were: Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen Everill The Baton and the Cross: Russia’s Church from Pagans to Putin by Lucy Ash The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health by Sophie Harman Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story by Graeme Lawson What the winning book is about The Burning Earth traces the past 500 years of human–environment interactions, exploring how the extraction of natural resources, colonial expansions, industrialization, migration and environmental change have shaped the modern world. The judges described the book as “a magisterial account of the interconnections between human history and environmental transformation. …
It is vivid in detail and beautifully written — important reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins of today’s climate crisis.” Amrith highlights that human history and environmental history are deeply interlinked — you cannot meaningfully separate the two. He also remarked that while the book documents much harm and suffering, he hopes readers see in it “paths not taken”, ideas forgotten, and sustainable traditions that might inspire a better way of living. Why it matters The book offers a global perspective: it spans continents and centuries, from silver mines in Latin America to oil pipelines in Central Asia.
It links major historical processes (colonialism, industrialization, migration) with environmental change and contemporary issues like the climate crisis.The award signals growing recognition of environmental history and global-history perspectives in major humanities prizes. For Amrith (Indian-origin scholar educated across continents) it reinforces the global dimension of historical scholarship