Tao Leigh Goffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

This timely book illuminates the connections between colonization and climate change by providing poignant real-world examples which expose the historically illiterate thinking of powerful nations on this topic

Corinne Fowler, author of 'Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain'

Hugely important . . . A truly illuminating book that joins the dots on the ideologies and realities that underpin our world, written with clarity, passion, insight and a frequently beautiful poetic turn of phrase. Essential reading for anyone with a curiosity over the true shape of global structures, and the intersections of identity, colonialism, capitalism and the climate crisis

Jeffrey Boakye, author of 'Black, Listed'

Nimble and prophesying, truthful and rigorous, Professor Tao Leigh Goffe roots the climate crisis to its true origins - the exploitation of people of colour - without hyperbole or lambast. This is the way it is. In having the knowledge, determination and simple intent to go where others have not, Dark Laboratory is a benchmark, both for experts within the climate struggle, and those wishing to know more. A vital, compelling and nuanced addition to the most pressing debate of modern times

Courttia Newland, author of 'A River Called Time'

An illuminating and vital redress of the climate crisis . . . I’m desperately glad that scholars like Tao are doing this crucial work

Paula Akpan, author of 'When We Ruled: The Rise and Fall of Twelve African Queens and Warriors'

A fantastic, galvanising read. A clarion call on climate issues through a Caribbean lens

 Irenosen Okojie, author of 'Nudibranch'

Goffe offers a compelling treatise for our time . . . This is a book that will expand the conventional wisdoms and vocabularies and reset our imaginary. It journeys across a vast territory of mobilities and ecologies, engaging with a range of indigenous knowledges in a stimulating and at times personal post-colonial account that communicates joy and optimism

Charlotte Williams, author of 'Sugar and Slate'

As well as being a very important addition to the dialogue on slavery and reparations, this is a very enlightening new look at climate change . . . Presenting the Dark Laboratory wherein the effects of the resulting changes of climate, race and technology are studied, Tao Leigh Goffe invites us to save the planet from the climate crisis by divesting from the economies that have caused it and were designed to kill us, advising that we must question our Western assumptions and chart new strategies for how to live after climate crisis

Barbara Blake Hannah, author of 'Growing Out: Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging 60s'

The lens on climate change I have been wanting to see through. Goffe’s pertinent and compelling study reveals the field of natural history’s entanglement with the Caribbean region, and the lasting effects of this extraction on environment and people. Dark Laboratory expertly connects our present climate crisis with colonial capitalism in the Caribbean.

Dr. Zakiya Mckenzie, author of 'Testimonies on the History of Jamaica Vol. 1'

A trenchant investigation of the Caribbean as both an imagined idyll, and a “dark laboratory of colonial experimentation”, from the human remains buried in archives to the “performative” nature of Black Lives Matter

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

A timely and refreshingly provocative study . . . [Goffe] proves to be an engaging scholar, and her work will go far in reshaping academic approaches to her most interesting subject matter . . . [Dark Laboratory] leaves the reader with something to ponder

[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

A powerful and multifaceted exploration of the Caribbean, challenging conventional narratives that often romanticize the region as a paradise untouched by the forces of exploitation

Timely and vital, entertaining and lyrical. . . Goffe unravels a sweeping and complex history that outlines the intersection between capitalism, colonialism, and the climate crisis

An urgent exploration of race, climate, and the devastating colonial experimentation with human lives and the natural world. It explodes conventional thinking about the crushing effects of profit-mongering, then unexpectedly, leads us back to sources of original power and ways of knowing who we are. Tao Leigh Goffe is a courageous, big-picture thinker who leaves no leaf unturned

Gretel Ehrlich, author of 'The Solace of Open Spaces'

Sweeping and sacred, Dark Laboratory stands as a singular text, leading readers through the dense layers of racial and colonial sedimentation that shape our present while radically reimagining a livable future on our rapidly warming planet

Ruha Benjamin, author of 'Race After Technology'

Dark Laboratory does the gargantuan, soulful work for slowing down the velocity, scope and impact of American and European exploitation of the Caribbean. The book doesn't simply bend; it actually deftly obliterates most of what I thought I knew about the Caribbean’s utility to Western wealth. The book is just so good, and absolutely foundational to understanding the conundrum of raced experimentation and mining in the West

Kiese Laymon, author of 'Heavy: An American Memoir'

Dark Laboratory takes readers by the hand and guides them from mountain tops to coral reefs, from Jamaica to China, from the story of one family to that of our planet, from the pasts that have made us to a future we can still imagine. At once expansive and intimate, this is an ambitious, genre-busting, and beautiful book. It is a must-read

Ada Ferrer, author of 'Cuba: An American History'

Stunning, brilliant and transformative. With a vast archive and a mighty pen, Goffe tells the story of modernity and it discontents through the land, legacy, and people of the Caribbean. Upon reading this book, you will have a new understanding of the world

Imani Pery, author of 'Prophets of the Hood'

From past to present and island to island, with wisdom and lyricism, Tao Leigh Goffe shows that we cannot honestly reckon with the global climate crisis without acknowledging its roots in the cultural, social, and ecological upheavals first inflicted on the so-called New World and its peoples in 1492—and for centuries thereafter. Yet from this darkness, she offers light

Jack E. Davis, author of 'The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea'

On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis

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.

Tao Leigh Goffe

Praise for Dark Laboratory

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 domi ...

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

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 Haw ...

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 domi ...

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

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 Haw ...

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 domi ...

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

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 Haw ...

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