Alexandru Ionut Bujdei

This is the saddest book I've ever read.

Just as it happens in some industries where the poor are exploited to no end, in the Congo, men, women and children pay the highest of prices in order to gather Cobalt out of the ground.

That Cobalt then goes up a long chain of corruption, neglect and especially greed until it ends up in some of the batteries that power the electrical devices and cars we use in richer areas of the world.

Siddharth does a great job of presenting the history of region, what bought it to this horrible state, the local factions involved in the Cobalt mining industry and what could be done to improve the lives of poorest people on the planet today.

The investigation into the long chain of lack of accountability is often interrupted by heartbreaking stories and interviews.

Somehow, we know that there are monsters in the world who profit off the backs of children yet we are rarely confrunted with such a level of greed and suffering.

Unfortunately, given the current state of the world, the lack of political power in the area and the greed of the economic system, nothing will change for the people of the Congo anytime soon.

Hell is an imaginary place, and given what I've read, the mining regions in the Congo are the closest real thing to it. That I know of thus far.

The book reminded me of a short story written by Ursula K. LeGuin - The ones who walk away from Omelas. I highly recommend you to read it.

loved the writing and the speed of the narative.
however, I feel that something big is missing from the story.

nice storytelling filled with historical information. good stuff. I like this author.
I had not considered the immensity of what was Napoleons campaign in Russia.
also, the book made me search for old motorcycles to buy and I found an old Ural for sale. almost considered it.

some stories were really nice but others too hard to follow

I've watched interviews and listened to podcasts with Graham Hancock for a couple of years now. The pieces of Graham's ideas were a little bit mixed in my mind and this book does a good job of building the puzzle.

Bringing clarity about the past is hard work and there's no doubt that when we're trying to build a timeline of our species we encounter some pretty big anomalies. Outlandish as they may seem, Graham's ideas try to provide an alternative to the current mainstream-historian-approved timeline of our evolution that tries to make room for the current anomalies to fit it. Well, at least he's asking more in-depth questions about them in the first place. Some theories stand on much better ground than others but even the wobbly ones add to the whole mystique of the book.

What's most important is that, since writing this book, there have been at least two discoveries, naming here Gobekli Tepe and neighbouring buried megalithic complexes in Turkey and the Hiawatha crater in Greenland that fit in with Graham's work. Moreover, there's this “shit just keeps getting older” pattern of discoveries from all around the world that make the current narrative more and more out of place as time goes by.

A lot of people either love or hate Graham Hancock, but one thing's for sure, since writing this book he's been more often proven right than wrong. In my opinion, we don't have to close the book and believe Graham's got the answer, we should rather consider that the right questions are not being asked enough.

A great set of history lessons.
What I found delightful is how Matthew White manages to slide in a joke or two when talking about horrific tragedies.

I also appreciate how the author succeeds in describing fairly complex historical events in simple terms. My general knowledge of history is not vast, and I managed to get a good grip of each chapter.
If, at times you feel like the author skipped a couple of years, remember, the point of this book is to focus on the atrocities, not the flow of history in details.
My only personal regret is having read the Romanian edition of the book and not the English one. However, unlike in other cases, the translation was spot on.
No matter if you will be horrified or delighted by the chapters of the book, in the end, you will come out with a better understanding of historical events and how they reflect in the current times.

If one must look at the past in order to predict the future then I fear that humankind's greatest tragedies have yet to unfold.

“Singuratatea dezvrajeste mintea la fel cum gerul limpezeste aerul.”

Every story, although simple, leaves the impression that there is some deeper meaning to be deciphered with enough contemplation and although the opposite is stated, I feel the stories somehow invite the reader to do so.
Loved all of them.

Worth reading. I got lost in the logic and statistics a couple of times but the authors make a pretty good presentation.
I would have liked to see more graphs presenting the statistics and diagrams or use-case diagrams. I think that would have been helpful to readers.
This book made me regret not paying as much attention as I should have in Game Theory classes I took back in the University.
I will edit this later with a couple of quotes I found interesting.

this book made me remember about my younger years, all along with the “and in that moment I was infinite” ticks of time from my life

I've gained a massive amount of respect towards Stephen Hawking after reading this.

I feel that one thing that this book does very well is that it reads like you were sitting next to Stephen Hawking and he would tell you this amazing story, somewhat like a teacher enthusiasticly explaining concepts to fresh students.

Physics is hard. You will want to pay a little extra attention through the first few chapters as they are focused on key physical concepts related to the universe. Stephen has a few witty jokes from now and then and they reflect the personality we've been accustomed to seeing on TV. In the second half it flows smoothly. It was really nice to read about how one idea led to the next one and the next one and so on and on here we are and these are currently the questions the scientists are asking in order to try and provide the answers to the big questions.

I believe it is a great book for people who rarery touch upon such complex subjects as the Big Bang, black holes, intelligence in the cosmos, artificial intelligence and a few others and want to grasp an overview of these matters. It will make you more confident around scientific subjects. It might even be a door-opener towards some of his other works.

There's absolutely no reason to dislike the book, however if you are aware about humanity's progress in science and technology for the past decades and are keeping track with the ideas discussed in our current times in these fields then this book will not take you very deep.
That is the magic of it, because it brings up big ideas in an accessible manner.

In an ever-faster moving world we rarely take time to consider the importance of our quest to answer such big questions that have followed us through space and time.

Jesus fucking Christ.
The 5 points are good but the book is horrible.
Filled with an religious air of superiority.
Sometimes I feel that in the examples he thought the people how to be manipulative in order to convince the partner to stay in an unhappy relationship.
This book could have been a short list with an attached description.

this was much better than expected