Until the Last Ton: Fossil Fuels in India from Empire to the Climate Crisis

A panoramic historical account of India’s ascent in the global fossil economyIndia is today one of the world’s largest producers and consumers of fossil fuels, driving new investments in the global fossil economy and achieving record-breaking levels of coal extraction at home.As the planet burns from the climate crisis, this entrenchment of fossil fuel dependency has left many wondering how we arrived at this point.Until the Last Ton provides a sweeping new appraisal of this planetary dilemma, uncovering how India became part of an emerging fossil capitalism that continues to shape the present. Matthew Shutzer traces the origins of the country’s fossil economy to the early nineteenth century, when India’s coal-bearing lands in the forests of the Chotanagpur Plateau became frontiers of energy production under the British Empire.Investments in coal anchored global capital in this remote landscape, transforming the forest into the center of imperial overseas coal production across a centu