This is one of the most depressing books I've read in a long time, which makes it all the more pressing to internalize the stories here and translate them into action. With extensive field research combined with powerful prose, Kara has penned a damning work on the cobalt mining industry. The exploitative practices, horrendous conditions, and immense suffering spawned from the extraction of an element that fuels global battery production are laid out in devastating detail. It's impossible not to be deeply moved by these stories.

Kara also puts these practices into historical context, reviewing the repression and horror of Belgium's King Leopold's rule and subsequent colonial regimes. The lack of state and corporate accountability in the modern day, which Kara is able to reveal with simple in person trips to different mining areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reaches truly stunning heights. I only wish the book was longer so Kara could have examined that end of the supply chain in more detail. Highly recommend