Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis

‘An exhilarating, urgent work … [Dark Laboratory] threads together ecological and human crises in an original, glittering web’ Afua Hirsch

From award-winning writer and theorist Tao Leigh Goffe, an urgent investigation into the intertwined history of colonialism and the climate crisis – and the lessons we can learn to fight for a better world.

Our planet is on the precipice of ecological breakdown and climate despair is at an all-time high. But there are many communities who have survived beyond the environmental destruction wrought on them by colonialism – and they hold the solutions for climate repair.

Using the Caribbean as a case study, Tao Leigh Goffe traces the history of the islands back to the arrival of Christopher Columbus, when the Caribbean became the subject of Western exploitation. Charting the ecological forces that have shaped the islands – from guano to coral reefs, sugarcane to mongooses – and learning from Black, Indigenous and Asian island histories, Goffe makes the argument that the extractivist capitalism that is the origin of the climate crisis is borne from colonial thinking – and that to fight one effectively is to fight both.

Treating the Caribbean as both a warning and a guide, Dark Laboratory is a lyrical, vibrant and urgent investigation into the greatest threat facing humanity.

‘Noble and necessary’ New York Times

‘A work of searching curiosity and intelligence’ Ekow Eshun

‘Necessary, compelling and utterly unique’ Monique Roffey

‘Relentlessly engaging … shows us new ways to live’ The Atlantic