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

Cobalt Red

How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

By: Siddharth Kara

Paperback | 30 July 2024

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $36.99

$34.50

or 4 interest-free payments of $8.63 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 5 to 10 business days

**2024 Pulitzer Prize Finalist**

Now in paperback: the powerful, revelatory New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year Award.

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 book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo-because we are all implicated.

About the Author

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 three books on modern slavery and won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. Kara's first book was adapted into a Hollywood film, Trafficked. A feature film inspired by Cobalt Red is currently in pre-production. He divides his time between the UK and the US.

Other Editions and Formats

Hardcover

Published: 13th June 2023

More in Violence in Society

Nowhere to Hide : A high-octane gripping crime thriller - Max Luther
Examining Crime and Justice around the World : Global Viewpoints - Janet P. Stamatel
Guns in America : Examining the Facts - Donald J. Campbell

RRP $44.99

$44.50

Paris : The Memoir - Paris Hilton

RRP $26.99

$25.75

The Mother Wound - Amani Haydar

$22.99

Unsafe : Damian Longs for Home, but One Man Stands in His Way - Cathy Glass