The Elements of Power - Nicolas Niarchos

ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING FINALIST 2026LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING ‘A tale of rapacious colonialism, Cold War spy games, dazzling technical innovation, big business rivalry, big power geopolitics […] an unflinching, landmark work on the nature of extractive capitalism’ Patrick Radden Keefe‘Joseph Conrad called colonial ventures in Africa “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience”. After reading this book you might want to add the words “until now”’ The TimesHow we became addicted to a supply chain that wreaks havoc across the globe.Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals – essential for the decarbonization of our economies – and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.Congo is rich. Swaths of the war-torn African country lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of cobalt, lithium, copper, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and other treasures. Recently, this veritable periodic table of resources has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global “energy transition”—the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. Th
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