Anyone who wonders why humanity is knowingly heading towards its downfall will find some enlightening answers in Amitav Ghosh’s book “The Curse of the Nutmeg”. And some hope.
It’s always a gift when a book makes you smarter. Especially when you thought you had reached your wits end when it came to the topic. “The Curse of the Nutmeg” by Amitav Ghosh tells a story of colonization that is relatively well known to people who study it. Indonesia’s Banda Islands were the only place in the world where nutmeg grew in the 16th century. Spices were enormously valuable at the time, “basically fetish objects,” Ghosh writes, “envy-inducing symbols of luxury and wealth that corresponded perfectly to Adam Smith’s insight that one desires wealth not because it satisfies material needs, but because “he is desired by others”.