
Dark Laboratory
On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
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Narrated by:
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Tao Leigh Goffe
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By:
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Tao Leigh Goffe
About this listen
A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today.
“Dark Laboratory is a gargantuan, soulful work. It obliterates most of what I thought I knew about the Caribbean’s utility to Western Wealth.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy
In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic scene that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise, the Caribbean and its people would come to pay the price of relentless Western exploitation and abuse. In Dark Laboratory, Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe embarks on a historical journey to chart the forces that have shaped these islands: the legacy of slavery, indentured labor, and the forced toil of Chinese and enslaved Black people who mined the islands’ bounty—including guano, which, at the time, was more valuable than gold—for the benefit of European powers and at the expense of the islands’ sacred ecologies.
Braiding together family history, cultural reportage, and social studies, Goffe radically transforms how we conceive of Blackness, the natural world, colonialism, and the climate crisis; and, in doing so, she deftly dismantles the many layers of entrenched imperialist thinking that shroud our established understanding of the human and environmental conditions to reveal the cause and effect of a global catastrophe. Dark Laboratory forces a reckoning with the received forms of knowledge that have led us astray.
Through the lens of the Caribbean, both guide and warning of the man-made disasters that continue to plague our world, Goffe closely situates the origins of racism and climate catastrophe within a colonial context. And in redressing these twin apocalypses, Dark Laboratory becomes a record of the violence that continues to shape the Caribbean today. But it is also a declaration of hope, offering solutions toward a better future based on knowledge gleaned from island ecosystems, and an impassioned, urgent testament to the human capacity for change and renewal.
©2025 Tao Leigh Goffe (P)2025 Random House AudioCritic reviews
One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 History Books of Fall 2024
“In this roving, erudite debut study, Goffe…traces the attitudes and beliefs that undergird today’s climate crisis back to the racist, extractive systems of thought developed by European colonizers in previous centuries…scintillating…bursts with keen insights and connections.”—Publishers Weekly *starred review*
“The best writing in any form leaves the reader with something to ponder, and Goffe’s criticism of, and skepticism about, nearly every aspect of Western academic assumptions concerning the climate crisis, imperialism, and race does just that…A timely and provocative study.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[Goffe] calls readers to rethink their relationships to environments, to rethink the idea of ownership and belonging, and so also rethink the idea of climate justice for everyone…compelling.”–Shelf Awareness
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Our sense of smell guides our lives far more than our screen-heavy, sight-privileged era would suggest. It animates our experience of food and drink, helps us access memories, and strengthens our intimacy with each other. But, long considered our most “beastly” sense, the inner workings of smell have stumped scientists for centuries. Now, cognitive scientist and leading smell researcher Jonas Olofsson uncovers the sophisticated biological processes that animate our olfactory system, with profound implications for how we perceive the world around us.
By: Jonas Olofsson
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The Shape of Things Unseen
- A New Science of Imagination
- By: Adam Zeman
- Narrated by: Ciaran Saward
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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People often think of imagination as something used only in creative endeavours. In fact, we use imagination constantly as we reminisce, anticipate, plan, daydream, read, create imagined worlds. The truth is we live in the here and now much less than we tend to think. Imagination isn’t the exception in our daily lives; it’s our default setting. Yet only now are we beginning to understand exactly how it works. From hallucination to sleepwalking, from REM sleep to delusions, neurologist Adam Zeman brilliantly guides us through the latest scientific studies in the world of the imagination.
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One of my favorite Science Years...
- By The ghost of Mark Twain Jr. Jr. Jr. on 03-17-25
By: Adam Zeman
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The Containment
- Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North
- By: Michelle Adams
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why? In The Containment, the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution.
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Revealing an important part of US History
- By espressi on 02-05-25
By: Michelle Adams
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In Open Contempt
- Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space
- By: Irvin Weathersby Jr.
- Narrated by: Irvin Weathersby Jr.
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Amid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country’s landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the inescapable specter of white supremacy in our open spaces and contemplates what it means to bear witness to sites of lasting racial trauma.
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Extraordinary
- By Adera Causey on 01-10-25
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The First and Last King of Haiti
- The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe
- By: Marlene L. Daut
- Narrated by: Don Elivert
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The First and Last King of Haiti is a riveting story of not only geopolitical clashes on a grand scale but also of friendship and loyalty, treachery and betrayal, heroism and strife in an era of revolutionary upheaval.
By: Marlene L. Daut
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Defy
- The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes
- By: Dr. Sunita Sah
- Narrated by: Dr. Sunita Sah
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Many of us comply much more than we realize. How many times have you wanted to object, disagree, or opt out of something but ended up swallowing your words, shaking your head, and just going along? Analyzing cases ranging from corporate corruption and sexual abuse to everyday acquiescence at work, the doctor’s office, and in our personal lives, award-winning organizational psychologist Dr. Sunita Sah delves deep into why the pressure to comply is a corrosive and often invisible force in our society.
By: Dr. Sunita Sah