
Cobalt Red
How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
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Buy Now for $26.99
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Narrated by:
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Peter Ganim
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By:
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Siddharth Kara
About this listen
Long-listed, New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2023
Long-listed, New Yorker Best Books of the Year, 2023
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.
©2023 Siddharth Kara (P)2023 Macmillan AudioCritic Reviews
2024, Pulitzer Prize - Finalist
2023, New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year: Long-listed
2023, New Yorker Best Books of the Year: Long-listed
"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
“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
Regarding the Performer: I really dislike when narrators do accents. Especially when they’re inaccurate and arguably racist. The author is relaying interviews from people that already have suffered enough. They don’t need their accents mocked, as well.
Recommend the Book. Performers please stop doing accents.
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The book also gives a great opportunity to learn more about the DRC.
One of the biggest tragedies unbeknownst to us in the West
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Necessary
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The stories within this book, this investigation left me shattered. The lack of remorse from our leaders politicians Big corporation and Big Tech is the clearest sign that sin is real and what is happening in front of us is not natural and it is not okay.
I pray that this is the kind of book they can teach in schools. I pray that this is the kind of book that people will find and feel enlightened and feel a little bit more compelled to just do better because they know better.
Extremely insightful
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We are all responsible.
Powerful and compelling
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Powerful
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Sad, compelling modern life consequences
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Clearly spells out: we are responsible
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Good book
Great book, slightly irritating narration
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Has simplified a complicated issue, poor research and delivery. Repetitive and uniformed
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