Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
Written by Siddharth Kara
Narrated by Peter Ganim
5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
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.
Related to Cobalt Red
Related audiobooks
The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saying It Loud: 1966—The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The New Nomads: How the Migration Revolution is Making the World a Better Place Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons from 25 Years of Covering Pandemics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Butts: A Backstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
African History For You
African History: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hannibal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rwandan Genocide: Hutus, Tutsis, and United Nations Soldiers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cleopatra: The Queen who Challenged Rome and Conquered Eternity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Origin of Civilization: The Myth or Reality Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5African History for Kids: A Captivating Guide to the History of Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jew a Negro: Being a Study of the Jewish Ancestry from an Impartial Standpoint Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kebra Nagast: The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Sagas, Rituals and Beliefs of African Myths Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Can't Wait to Call You My Wife: African American Letters of Love and Family in the Civil War Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arabs: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Mythology: The Folklore and History of Ancient Africa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Africa’s Origin Stories: The History and Legacy of the Ancient African Stories that Sought to Explain Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Cobalt Red
62 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a book that will forever change how you move through the world. It opened my eyes to the immeasurable violence colonialism partakes in throughout the world. I am forever changed.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must read. We all using and taking part in the tech world of today should at least know what price is paid getting our gadgets to work.
A most important book, i recommend it highly! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not for the faint of heart a clear-cut documentary of the human cost of the first world technology I'll never look at a Tesla the same again
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A child in the Congo dies every day so we can have batteries for our phones.
That's the story in this horrifying exposé of labor practices reminiscent of the atrocities in the Congo under Leopold II. Workers, including children, mine cobalt in impoverished and often brutal conditions—risking debilitating injuries and death.
The author interviewed workers and families in the affected regions and tells their stories in their words. The Congo is rich in resources—but Chinese manufacturers producing goods for American companies are forcing Africans to work in subhuman conditions. The book is written in a straightforward style that makes it no less chilling.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Must read! We work in our graves, never forget the stories of those who "bake your bread"
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the most brilliant, tragic, passionate books I have recently read. A must-read for everyone who holds a phone or uses a computer. If more of us have the knowledge, surely we can take action to help the Congo and it’s children to a better future. I cried.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The most tragic account. Not for the faint of heart, but excellent reporting on a global crisis centered in the Congo. Global supply chains link us all together, and none of us is free until all of us are free.