Cobalt, Charlie Angus
Cobalt, Charlie Angus
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Cobalt
Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower

Author: Charlie Angus

Narrator: Charles Constant

Unabridged: 6 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/13/2022


Synopsis

The world is desperate for cobalt. It drives the proliferation of digital and clean technologies. But this "demon metal" has a horrific present and a troubled history.

The modern search for cobalt has brought investors back to a small town in Northern Canada, a place called Cobalt. Like the demon metal, this town has a dark and turbulent history.

The tale of the early-twentieth-century mining rush at Cobalt has been told as a settle's adventure, but Indigenous people had already been trading in metals from the region for two thousand years. And the events that happened here—the theft of Indigenous lands, the exploitation of a multicultural workforce, and the destruction of the natural environment—established a template for resource extraction that has been exported around the world.

Charlie Angus reframes the complex and intersectional history of Cobalt within a broader international frame—from the conquistadores to the Western gold rush to the struggles in the Democratic Republic of Congo today. He demonstrates how Cobalt set Canada on its path to become the world's dominant mining superpower.

About Charlie Angus

Charlie Angus has been the Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay since 2004. He is the author of eight books about the North, Indigenous issues, and mining culture, including the award-winning Children of the Broken Treaty. He is also the lead singer of the Juno-nominated alt country band Grievous Angels. Charlie and his wife, author Brit Griffin, raised their three daughters at an abandoned mine site in Cobalt, Ontario, that looks like a Crusader castle.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Enid

WOW! WOW! WOW! What a fabulous, fascinating and quintessentially Canadian read. A brilliantly researched and compelling social history of the town of Cobalt, that is, at one and the same time, a social history of this nation of Canada. For anyone who is not familiar with the history of resource deve......more

Goodreads review by Janet

Excellent analysis of the history of the mining town, Cobalt. Cobalt has been part of my life, as it is in the same region as our summer cottage. The history of the founding of the town, the politics, the social divisions (I even know where Millionaire's Row is in Haileybury), and the struggle betwe......more

Goodreads review by Carolyn

Really good Canadian history. Angus takes a revisionist look at several myths. He exposes the institutional violence behind the supposedly peaceful northern frontier town of Cobalt. Indigenous dispossession accompanied the discovery of silver and other economically important metals. Then complete la......more

Goodreads review by Hella

Eye opening but tragic expose of the silver rush in northern Ontario in the early 1900s. The author, an MP for Timmins-James Bay and a resident of Cobalt, carefully researched the history of the area. Like the gold rushes of the 1800s, this one included the abject poverty, disease, and hopelessness......more