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New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
by Siddharth Kara ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023
A horrifying yet necessary picture of exploitation and poverty in the Congo.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A penetrating exposé on the deliberate smoke screens created by powerful companies to obscure the realities behind the abysmal conditions of cobalt miners in the Congo.
Cobalt is highly valuable as an essential component of the rechargeable batteries that power laptops, tablets, smartphones, and electric vehicles. As such, the demand for cobalt has risen exponentially in the last decade. In 2021, 72% of the global supply was mined in the Congo, along what is called the Central African Copper Belt. In this eye-opening and disturbing investigative report, Kara, the author of multiple books on modern global slavery, paints a stark portrait of the appalling conditions in the mining villages, expertly capturing the “frenzy” of digging by so-called artisanal miners, who toil in unspeakable conditions for a pittance. These workers are the first link in the exploitative chain of resource extraction that keeps millions of Africans in poverty and ill health and degrades the environment, all while enriching massive corporations and foreign investors. Nationalized by former dictator Joseph Mobutu, then sold to the Chinese in 2012 by subsequent dictator Joseph Kabila, the mines were supposed to support infrastructure, education, and health care, yet little of that money has benefited the Congolese people. Peasants are so desperate for work that digging compels the whole family to participate, even the children; there are few schools, and those that exist are too expensive for low-wage workers. Corporations such as Apple, Tesla, Samsung, and Daimler claim to follow regulations, but Kara demonstrates their duplicity and empty public relations rhetoric. In more than two decades of “research into slavery and child labor, I have never seen more extreme predation for profit than I witnessed at the bottom of the global cobalt supply chains.” The author’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.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-28430-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
by Bob Woodward ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2024
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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PERSPECTIVES
by Ta-Nehisi Coates ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2024
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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by Ta-Nehisi Coates ; illustrated by Jackie Aher
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