Dark Laboratory

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Brought to you by Penguin.

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 dramatic 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 vibrant and complex history of the islands back to 1492 and the arrival of Christopher Columbus when the Caribbean became the subject of Western exploitation. Charting the human and ecological forces that have shaped the islands, Goffe examines the legacy of fierce warrior Queen Nanny of the Maroons, engages in pressing cultural debate about stolen artefacts and human remains which are kept hidden in museum archives, and visits Indigenous farming cooperatives who are using ancestral knowledge to rebuild their communities.

Using the Caribbean as a both a warning and a guide, Dark Laboratory takes hopeful and galvanizing teachings from the islands communities to offer illuminating solutions to the ecological crisis. From guano to sugarcane, coral bleaching to invasive mongoose populations, Dark Laboratory is a lyrical, vibrant and urgent investigation into the greatest threat facing humanity.

‘Necessary, thoroughly compelling . . . Every page is mixed with heart and conviction’ Monique Roffey, author of ‘The Mermaid of Black Conch’

© Tao Leigh Goffe 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Groundbreaking . . . In a narrative spanning hundreds of years, thousands of miles and successive waves of colonial driven migration, Goffe charts the development of the modern western ideology that has come to dominate the world
Guardian
Noble and necessary . . . Goffe’s ear is tuned to songs of resistance, to what it looks like to make life amid (and after) colonial subjugation
New York Times Book
Ambitious . . . This is an urgent and frequently grim work, but it is also hopeful . . . Goffe is relentlessly engaging, leaving the academy’s dusty archives, and traveling from Jamaica to Sardinia, Hong Kong to Hawai‘i, to discover better ways to live
The Atlantic
A necessary, much needed cri de coeur, a thoroughly compelling book about the climate crisis and the Caribbean region. Dark Laboratory is utterly unique to read; it is punch the air, punch in the gut, heart palpitations thrilling. Goffe isn't just a scholar of the current climate emergency but a poet and a feminist who joins the dots . . . Every page is mixed with heart and conviction. Mandatory reading on climate and the Caribbean region
Monique Roffey, author of 'The Mermaid of Black Conch'
A powerful and tender and inspiring journey through time, landscapes and ideas that shape our understanding of the origins of climate breakdown and futures we can and must realise
Joycelyn Longdon, author of 'Natural Connection'
Spinning off in unexpected and creative directions . . . new possibilities emerge in the collision of ideas, including the hopeful possibility of healing and restoration . . . the constant divergences and convergences of the text are entirely deliberate – an apt way of showing how racial inequality runs like mycellium through the story of climate. This is a book about interconnections, about allowing different lines of thought to cross-pollinate each other
The Earthbound Report
In reframing the Anthropocene as a continuation of colonial practices, Goffe positions climate justice as a form of historical redress. Within this framing, domestic emissions targets and carbon budgets alone cannot account for centuries of ecological debt. Instead, Goffe invites us to see climate action as a decolonial project – one that requires transforming not only economies but also systems of knowledge, memory, and belonging
London School of Economics Review of Books
An ambitious book both in scale and depth . . . [Goffe's] skilled judgement with a well-placed turn of phrase and ability to effortlessly hopscotch between historical fact, her personal experiences, and the present crisis we face combine to make a compelling read . . . It takes a strong and confident writer to take something most people never think about like the introduction of the Mongoose to Jamaica and think to herself not only am I going to devote an entire chapter to it, but I’m going to make it fascinating
The Race Equality Centre
A comprehensive, evidence-led study of the impact of colonialism . . . Goffe powerfully argues that racism lies at the foundation of the climate crisis and that the Caribbean has been systematically asset stripped for Western ‘trophy hunters’ . . . Goffe urges a new narrative that empowers communities long oppressed, and which can be used as a powerful guide to help adapt to and mitigate the climate and ecological crisis
Yorkshire Bylines
A work of searching curiosity and intelligence that traces the connections between colonial power, racial violence and the perilous state of our planet today, while also sketching a path to a more liveable, less unequal future. It is a necessary book and an important one
Ekow Eshun, author of 'The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them'

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