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

Description

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 HeavyIn 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...