The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis
The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis
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The Looting Machine
Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

Author: Tom Burgis

Narrator: Dugald Bruce Lockhart

Unabridged: 10 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 06/24/2025

Synopsis

An “impressive” (Wall Street Journal) exposé of  twenty-first century individuals and companies who have become obscenely rich from the resource trade in Africa

Africa is the world’s poorest continent and, arguably, its richest. In The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis takes readers on a gripping journey into the world of the magnates and militiamen, the despots and jet-setting executives who gorge on Africa’s vast stocks of oil, gas, metals, and precious stones. Combining deep reporting with an action-packed narrative, Burgis presents a blistering investigation of the plunder of a continent and the terrible human toll.

About Tom Burgis

Tom Burgis is an investigations correspondent at the Financial Times. He has reported from more than forty countries, won major journalism awards in the US and Asia and been shortlisted for eight others, including twice at the British Press Awards. His critically acclaimed book The Looting Machine, about the modern plundering of Africa, won an Overseas Press Club of America award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mal on April 06, 2017

Misconceptions abound in the public perception of corruption in Africa. Tom Burgis’ incisive new analysis of corruption on the continent, The Looting Machine, dispels these dangerous myths. For starters, corruption is mistakenly believed to reign supreme in every country on the African continent. (Th......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on September 26, 2022

This is an overview of the widespread corruption on the African continent that keeps it impoverished. This book is rather poorly written, concentrating too much upon the specifics of corrupt deals and too little on potential solutions, but it is remarkable in its disclosure of shocking improprieties......more

Goodreads review by Tariq on February 05, 2016

The legacy of Cecil Rhodes refuses to wither in the destitute yet mineral rich African continent. There is little chance for the ordinary people when their governments and ruling cliques are hell bent on enriching themselves. Opinions of people do not matter in resource states where their government......more

Goodreads review by Benjamin on April 29, 2020

I really wanted to like this book. I really respect what the author set out to do: describe the kleptocracy that is robbing many African countries, leaving their citizens struggling in grinding poverty that is difficult to even comprehend. The writer also aimed to show how we in the developed world......more

Goodreads review by Drew on January 23, 2021

This is the type of book that makes you so mad about what you didn't know that you do more research. Too often Africa is treated as an overarching simplistic concept when talked about in history and in modern potlitics but in reality it is complex and nuanced collection of countries, each with their......more

Quotes

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year, 2015

“A great scrapbook of exploitation. It is written in a way that will appeal to the general reader, but still interest specialists...Burgis has the good sense not to present [the cruel contrast between individual poverty and national wealth] in an alarmist way, but with an understatement that is far more powerful...The Looting Machine is in part a means of self‑exoneration, a way of making amends to those he ultimately could not help...[In this book he] has done a service to some of the world’s poorest people.”—Financial Times

“A powerful new book.”—Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

“[An] impressive study… It is to Mr. Burgis's tremendous credit that he writes with such tenacity.”—Wall Street Journal

“[Burgis] presents a lively portrait of the rapacious ‘looting machine’...a rich collage of examples showing the links between corrupt companies and African elites.”—Economist

“[Burgis] brings the tools of an investigative reporter and the sensibility of a foreign correspondent. [He] transcends the tired binary debate about the root causes of the continent's misery.”—Howard French, Foreign Affairs

“A brave and defiant book.”—New York Times Sunday Book Review

“A rollercoaster read. Filled with vignettes on spooks, smugglers and kleptocratic warlords with suitcases of cash, it reads like a crime thriller, while at the same time being a well‑researched, accessible account of the extractives industry; the privatisation of power in Africa and its impact on the continent’s people.”—African Arguments

“Brilliant fascinating detail. The book lives up to its colourful subtitle: ‘Warlords, tycoons, smugglers and the systematic theft of Africa's wealth.’ Showing the finesse and determination that has won him awards at the FT, and at considerable risk to his own well‑being, Burgis tracks down and confronts the people at the centre of this plunder.”—African Research Institute

“This fine book...catalogues the grotesque self‑enrichment of the callous rulers of Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, countries that should be immensely wealthy, but which remain poor, even by African standards. In each case, this theft of national treasure would be impossible without non‑African facilitators. ... Burgis’s book is essential to understanding why poverty, ignorance and conflict persist in Africa.”—Independent Catholic News

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