Episode Details

In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean to find an Edenic scene that has since been mythologized. Today on A Public Affair, host Ali Muldrow is in conversation with Tao Leigh Goffe who charts this mythology in her new book, Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. She writes about the legacy of slavery, indentured labor, and the forced toil of Chinese and enslaved Black people who mined the Caribbean islands for the benefit of European powers at the expense of the islands’ sacred ecologies. Featured image of the cover of Dark Laboratory, available from Vintage.