Cobalt Red, Siddharth Kara
Cobalt Red, Siddharth Kara
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Cobalt Red
How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Bestseller

Author: Siddharth Kara

Narrator: Peter Ganim

Unabridged: 11 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/31/2023


Synopsis

This program includes an author's note read by the author.

An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.

Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt.

Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial audiobook, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

About Siddharth Kara

SIDDHARTH KARA is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. He is a British Academy Global Professor and an Associate Professor of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at Nottingham University. Kara has authored several books and reports on slavery and child labor, and he won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. He has also taught courses on modern slavery at Harvard University, UC Berkeley, and Cornell University. He divides his time between the U.K. and the U.S.


Reviews

Goodreads review by zuza_zaksiazkowane on June 03, 2024

To nie jest łatwa lektura, ale każdy powinien to przeczytać moim zdaniem......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on May 15, 2024

Please tell the people in your country, a child of the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones. Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara I am writing this review on my laptop with a rechargeable battery, looking at my tablet with a rechargeable battery. I brushed my teeth this morning with an e......more

Goodreads review by Sam on March 12, 2024

At no point in their history have the Congolese people benefited in any meaningful way from the monetization of their country’s resources. Rather, they have often served as a slave labor force for the extraction of these resources at minimum cost and maximum suffering. Cobalt Red, written by Siddhart......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on January 30, 2024

Powerful book about the humans rights abuses and child labor taking place in Congo. Cobalt is a key component of every lithium-ion rechargeable battery, and many Congolese people are suffering and dying everyday to procure cobalt that will be used by the rest of the world. It was a painful and neces......more

Goodreads review by Alex.andthebooks on December 03, 2024

Wstydzę się bycia człowiekiem......more


Quotes

Praise for Cobalt Red
“With extraordinary tenacity and compassion, Siddharth Kara evokes one of the most dramatic divides between wealth and poverty in the world today. His reporting on how the dangerous, ill-paid labor of Congo children provides a mineral essential to our cellphones will break your heart. I hope policy-makers on every continent will read this book.” — Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

"Cobalt Red is a riveting, eye-opening, terribly important book that sheds light on a vast ongoing catastrophe. Everyone who uses a smartphone, an electric vehicle, or anything else powered by rechargeable batteries needs to read what Siddharth Kara has uncovered." — Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air

"Meticulously researched and brilliantly written by Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red documents the frenzied scramble for cobalt and the exploitation of the poorest people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
— Baroness Arminka Helic, House of Lords, UK

"Siddharth Kara's powerfully told and meticulously researched book exposes the dirty secret that much of our 'clean' energy is powered by the violent exploitation, and blood, of children in the Congo. He makes a compelling case for the urgent need to address this modern form of slavery. " — Nick Grono, CEO, Freedom Fund

"As the world continues to embrace the net zero agenda and becomes ever more dependent on personal electronic devices and new technologies, this compelling book paints a dire portrait of the conditions under which a crucial natural resource is extracted. Drawing on multiple field missions and first-hand accounts of the process of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Siddharth Kara shows in vivid detail not only life on the ground and the true human cost of extraction, but also the gross inequalities built into global value chains and business models that underpin this industry. This account reinforces our understanding of the interdependent and mutually reinforcing nature of all human rights and the many negative externalities of our modern global economy." — Todd Landman, Professor of Political Science, Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and Executive Director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham

"Kara, who traveled the country, entering mines and speaking to workers at every level of the labor chain, exposes slavery, child labor, forced labor, and other ongoing horrors and crimes. Extensively researched, this piercing narrative is muckraking journalism at its finest. " — Booklist, STARRED review

“[Siddharth Kara’s] well-written, forcefully argued report exposes the widespread, debilitating human ramifications of our device-driven global society. A horrifying yet necessary picture of exploitation and poverty in the Congo.” — Kirkus, STARRED review

“Readers will be outraged and empowered to call for change.” – Publishers Weekly STARRED review

Praise for Modern Slavery
"While many in this fight are sympathetic to the suffering, Kara not only brings true expertise, he brings true empathy. Read this book to immerse yourself in both." -- Jean Baderschneider, CEO, Global Fund to End Modern Slavery

"Extraordinary and shocking book." -- Alex De Waal, Times Literary Supplement

"A must-read for all those concerned about human rights and labor exploitation." -- Urmila Bhoola, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery


Awards

  • Pulitzer Prize - Finalist
  • New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
  • New Yorker Best Books of the Year