'Fascinating magisterially researched and brilliantly written.' Steve Silberman author of
Neurotribes Thirty-two days underground. No heat. No sunlight. 4 June 1938. Nathaniel
Kleitman and his research student make their way down the seventy-one steps leading to the
mouth of Mammoth Cave. They are about to embark on one of the most intrepid and bizarre
experiments in medical history one which will change our understanding of sleep forever.
Undisturbed by natural light they will investigate what happens when you overturn one of the
fundamental rhythms of the human body. Together they enter the darkness. When Kleitman
first arrived in New York a penniless twenty-year-old refugee few would have guessed that in
just a few decades he would revolutionise the field of sleep science. In Mapping the Darkness
Kenneth Miller weaves science and history to tell the story of the outsider scientists who took
sleep science from the fringes to a mainstream obsession. Reliving the spectacular experiments
technological innovation imaginative leaps and single-minded commitment of these early
pioneers Miller provides a tantalising glimpse into the most mysterious third of our lives.
