Cobalt Red

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (2022) is a journalistic take on the mining of cobalt in DR Congo, written by Siddharth Kara (the author has published other books on modern slavery). This book focuses on cobalt, the mineral that is critical for nearly all of our rechargeable devices and much of the 'green' economy, with the DR Congo providing the majority of the world's cobalt supply. This book is a sort of extended version of Amnesty International reporting on cobalt (e.g., here from 2016) or that of Human Rights Watch (e.g., here). Parts of the book verge on slightly paraphrased versions of those reports.

The author spent a few months in the country, over a series of visits. With thick description (read: travel journal with basic context and history, peppered with random facts, similar to Wikipedia reading), this book appears to aim to reach a general audience (successfully, as a best seller). The Amnesty or Human Rights Watch reports are sufficient for anyone interested in understanding the issues involved. As much as the author wants to address the crimes occurring, the book perpetuates a dehumanizing narrative of DR Congo and the Congolese people – seemingly in an effort to emphasize the appalling situation. The book draws on colonial language and sources (the history of DR Congo is centered fully around European interactions with it, European 'discoveries' and so forth – apparently no other history is worth telling, or as Hagel suggested, that there is no other history). In the expose style of journalism, the book delves into the depths of the problem, but offers little in the way of solutions (beyond generics). For anyone following the issue of cobalt and/or familiar with DR Congo, there is not much new from this book (and could be frustrating).