
The Looting Machine
Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dugald Bruce Lockhart
-
By:
-
Tom Burgis
About this listen
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 listeners 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.
Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Deadball Mayhem
- Scoundrels, Scandalous Behavior, and Tragic Events
- By: Ronald T. Waldo
- Narrated by: David Cantor
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout the 1890s and Deadball Era, noteworthy events occurred, cementing that period’s place in the annals of baseball history. As a host of supreme ballplayers aided baseball’s growth, scoundrels and roustabouts exuded their influence from the diamond and through outside nefarious endeavors. Sadly, tragic moments also occurred, due to the frailty of human nature.
By: Ronald T. Waldo
-
The Invincible Twelfth
- The 12th South Carolina Infantry of the Gregg-McGowan Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia
- By: Benjamin L. Cwayna
- Narrated by: Bob Neufeld
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The regiment’s career commenced with an ignominious defeat in its initial engagement on the South Carolina coast at Port Royal Sound in 1861. This demoralizing event could have set the regiment on a trajectory of self-fulfilling failure and catastrophe.
-
The Age of Revolutions
- And the Generations Who Made It
- By: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The revolutions that raged across Europe and the Americas over seven decades, from 1760 to 1825, created the modern world. Revolutionaries shattered empires, toppled social hierarchies, and birthed a world of republics. But old injustices lingered on and the powerful engines of revolutionary change created new and insidious forms of inequality. In The Age of Revolutions, historian Nathan Perl-Rosenthal offers the first narrative history of this entire era.
-
City of Wood
- San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry
- By: James Michael Buckley
- Narrated by: Rick Barr
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
California's 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the "instant city" of San Francisco as a base to exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood examines how capitalists and workers logged the state's vast redwood forests to create the financial capital and construction materials needed to build the regional metropolis of San Francisco. Architectural historian James Michael Buckley investigates the remote forest and its urban core as two poles of a regional "city."
-
90 Seconds to Midnight
- A Hiroshima Survivor's Nuclear Odyssey
- By: Charlotte Jacobs
- Narrated by: Mirai
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow—a teenage girl living in Hiroshima in 1945, when the city was annihilated by an atomic bomb. Struggling with grief and anger, Thurlow set out to warn the world about the horrors of a nuclear attack in a crusade that has lasted decades. In 2015 Thurlow sparked a rallying cry for activists when she proclaimed at the United Nations, "Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist."
By: Charlotte Jacobs
-
Captain Kidd
- A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal
- By: Samuel Marquis
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious "pirate" outlaws ever, but his legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Having captivated imaginations for more than three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, troubling questions remain. Was he really a criminal or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer's worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?
By: Samuel Marquis
-
Deadball Mayhem
- Scoundrels, Scandalous Behavior, and Tragic Events
- By: Ronald T. Waldo
- Narrated by: David Cantor
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout the 1890s and Deadball Era, noteworthy events occurred, cementing that period’s place in the annals of baseball history. As a host of supreme ballplayers aided baseball’s growth, scoundrels and roustabouts exuded their influence from the diamond and through outside nefarious endeavors. Sadly, tragic moments also occurred, due to the frailty of human nature.
By: Ronald T. Waldo
-
The Invincible Twelfth
- The 12th South Carolina Infantry of the Gregg-McGowan Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia
- By: Benjamin L. Cwayna
- Narrated by: Bob Neufeld
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The regiment’s career commenced with an ignominious defeat in its initial engagement on the South Carolina coast at Port Royal Sound in 1861. This demoralizing event could have set the regiment on a trajectory of self-fulfilling failure and catastrophe.
-
The Age of Revolutions
- And the Generations Who Made It
- By: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The revolutions that raged across Europe and the Americas over seven decades, from 1760 to 1825, created the modern world. Revolutionaries shattered empires, toppled social hierarchies, and birthed a world of republics. But old injustices lingered on and the powerful engines of revolutionary change created new and insidious forms of inequality. In The Age of Revolutions, historian Nathan Perl-Rosenthal offers the first narrative history of this entire era.
-
City of Wood
- San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry
- By: James Michael Buckley
- Narrated by: Rick Barr
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
California's 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the "instant city" of San Francisco as a base to exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood examines how capitalists and workers logged the state's vast redwood forests to create the financial capital and construction materials needed to build the regional metropolis of San Francisco. Architectural historian James Michael Buckley investigates the remote forest and its urban core as two poles of a regional "city."
-
90 Seconds to Midnight
- A Hiroshima Survivor's Nuclear Odyssey
- By: Charlotte Jacobs
- Narrated by: Mirai
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow—a teenage girl living in Hiroshima in 1945, when the city was annihilated by an atomic bomb. Struggling with grief and anger, Thurlow set out to warn the world about the horrors of a nuclear attack in a crusade that has lasted decades. In 2015 Thurlow sparked a rallying cry for activists when she proclaimed at the United Nations, "Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist."
By: Charlotte Jacobs
-
Captain Kidd
- A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal
- By: Samuel Marquis
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious "pirate" outlaws ever, but his legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Having captivated imaginations for more than three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, troubling questions remain. Was he really a criminal or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer's worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?
By: Samuel Marquis
-
The Art of Diplomacy
- How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World
- By: Stuart E. Eizenstat, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger - foreword, James A. Baker III
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 20 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inside the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years. In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E. Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Written from the perspective that only a participant in top level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation, the drama that took place around the table, and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics.
By: Stuart E. Eizenstat, and others
-
The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell
- By: Nathan Waddell - editor
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 42 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell offers a wide-ranging reconsideration of Orwell's life and work, focusing on the extensive connections between his novels, essays, diaries, columns, letters, and reviews. Sections on Orwell's professional activities, his main literary influences, his politics, his intellectual fixations, his literary contemporaries, and his legacies structure the book, which moves thematically and topically through the full scope of his output.
-
Agents of Change
- The Women Who Transformed the CIA
- By: Christina Hillsberg
- Narrated by: Valerie Plame, Christina Hillsberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through exclusive interviews with current and former female CIA officers, many of whom have never spoken publicly, Agents of Change tells an enthralling and, at times, disturbing story set against the backdrop of the evolving women’s movement. It was the 1960s, a “secretarial” era, when women first gained a foothold and pushed against the one-dimensional, pop-culture trope of the sexy Cold War Bond Girl. Underestimated but undaunted, they fought their way, decade-by-decade, through adversity to the top of the spy game.
-
The Great Transformation
- China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
- By: Chen Jian, Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.
-
-
Excellent history but the narration’s mispronunciation takes away from the story
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-25
By: Chen Jian, and others
-
The German Way of War
- A Lesson in Tactical Management
- By: Jaap Jan Brouwer
- Narrated by: Iain Batchelor
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The German Army lost two consecutive wars and the conclusion is often drawn that it simply wasn't able to cope with its opponents. This image is constantly reinforced in literature and in the media, where seemingly brainless operating German units led by fanatical officers predominate. Nothing was as far from the truth. The records show that the Germans consistently outfought the far more numerous Allied armies that eventually defeated them: their relative battlefield performance was at least 1.5 and in most cases three times as high as that of its opponents.
By: Jaap Jan Brouwer
-
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
- The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
- By: Jason Stearns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal and unstaunchable war in which millions have died. And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention. In this deeply reported book, Jason K. Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it.
-
-
First book I've found that explains DRC
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-17
By: Jason Stearns
-
Blueprints
- How Mathematics Shapes Creativity
- By: Marcus du Sautoy
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Shakespeare has the Three Witches cast Macbeth’s lot, he uses something very weird to do it: not simply “eye of newt and toe of frog,” but the number seven. And when Hamlet claims, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” Shakespeare reaches for eleven. For Shakespeare, prime numbers were magical. And he is not alone. As Marcus du Sautoy showcases in Blueprints, creativity is inseparable from mathematics.
By: Marcus du Sautoy
-
Kleptopia
- How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Tom Burgis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.
-
-
Lazy Journalism in long narrative form
- By Jeremy on 02-14-21
By: Tom Burgis
-
The World Under Capitalism
- Observations on Economics, Politics, History, and Culture
- By: Branko Milanovic
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Branko Milanovic is best known as one of the world's leading experts on global inequality. But he is also an unusually wide-ranging and penetrating commentator on subjects across economics and beyond, in politics, history, and culture. This book brings together his most searching, provocative, and entertaining articles of recent years, providing an abundance of vital insights into the evolution and dynamics of the world under capitalism.
By: Branko Milanovic
-
Make It Ours
- Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh
- By: Robin Givhan
- Narrated by: Robin Givhan
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh’s family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh’s mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man’s rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century’s worth of ideas about luxury and taste.
By: Robin Givhan
-
Cobalt Red
- How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
- By: Siddharth Kara
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cobalt Red is the searing first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt.
-
-
A must read
- By Anonymous User on 02-01-23
By: Siddharth Kara
-
The Fortunes of Africa
- A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 26 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.
-
-
VAST & WELL RESEARCHED
- By Odomite on 02-03-21
By: Martin Meredith