A review by clarkissimo
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

5.0

A clear-eyed, direct, and devastating account of the exploitation of the DRC and its people amidst the global lust for cobalt. It’s also a concise history that reveals the brutality and destruction meted out on the land and people to be nothing new. It’s been happening for centuries, since the very beginnings of Europe’s fever to colonize. The author provides some insight as to a path forward, but I leave the book wondering if we aren’t simply doomed as a species. It’s not an easy book to want to read, but everyone holding a cell phone should read it. The book doesn’t suggest we all throw our phones and EV’s away—but it does suggest that, at the very least, we ask why and how the world’s poorest people bear the harshest burdens for our modern conveniences. How do we account for all the dead children that provided the cobalt for our phones’ batteries?