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Kevin Bales

Goodreads Author

Born

Tulsa, The United States

Website

http://www.kevinbales.net

Genre

Nonfiction

Influences

Adam Hochschild, Kurt Vonnegut, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, Ursu ...more

Member Since

December 2007

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Why I had to write Blood and Earth ...

For years I traveled the world meeting people in slavery trying to understand the depth and truth of their lives. What I saw, heard, and learned changed me, and led me deeper into the work of ending slavery, but I was missing something important. Where there are slaves, the environment is under assault, forests are being destroyed, endangered species are dying, and climate change is worsening – and all of this destruction is driven by profits from products we buy.

Children, especially, are suffering: in the fish camps of Bangladesh, in the mines of Eastern Congo feeding the electronics industry, in mercury-saturated gold pits in Ghana, and when brutally used and disposed of by criminals decimating the Why I had to write Blood and Earth ...

For years I traveled the world meeting people in slavery trying to understand the depth and truth of their lives. What I saw, heard, and learned changed me, and led me deeper into the work of ending slavery, but I was missing something important. Where there are slaves, the environment is under assault, forests are being destroyed, endangered species are dying, and climate change is worsening – and all of this destruction is driven by profits from products we buy.

Children, especially, are suffering: in the fish camps of Bangladesh, in the mines of Eastern Congo feeding the electronics industry, in mercury-saturated gold pits in Ghana, and when brutally used and disposed of by criminals decimating the Amazon forest. And beside the children, endangered species are being wiped out, or pressed to fight back - like the ‘protected' Bengal tigers that prey on child slaves in fishing camps.

After seven years of research and travel we now know that if slavery were a country it would be the third largest producer of CO2 in the world after China and the USA, though its population is only the size of Canada’s. The scale of this joint disaster has been too big to see, until now. Yet, it is precisely the role that slaves play in this ecological catastrophe that opens a new solution, one that unleashes the power of abolition to save and preserve the natural world.

To hear more about Blood and Earth tune in to NPR’s Fresh Air on Tuesday 19 January, and check out an excerpt in Scientific American HERE.

I'm a guy that grew up in Oklahoma thinking if the whole world is as quiet as this place I better cram life to the fullest. The good news: the world is often much more interesting than Oklahoma. I lived a long time in London, and now live in DC. For the last 14 years all my work has been about modern slavery - real slavery, not sweatshops, or bad marriages, or not being able to stop shopping. Back in 1999 I published a book about contemporary slavery that changed my life. It went into 10 languages, got made into a movie, won some prizes, stuff like that. Since then I've published three more books, and three more will come out in 2008.

In Sept 2007 I published a book that is a plan for the eradication of global slavery. It's called Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves. This is what people said about it:

“None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. The continuing existence of slavery is one of the greatest tragedies facing our global humanity. Today we finally have the means and increasingly the conviction to end this scourge and to bring millions of slaves to freedom. Read Kevin Bales' practical and inspiring book and you will discover how our world can be free at last.” -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“I was enslaved at age 11 as part of a human trafficking plot. I know modern slavery from the inside, and since coming to freedom I am committed to end it forever. Every human life has value. People have been sold for far too long and it's time to stop it. This book shows us how to make a world where no more childhoods will be stolen and sold as mine was.” Given Kachepa, former child slave in the United States.

“Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation, Americans have congratulated themselves on ending slavery once and for all. But did we? Kevin Bales is a powerful and effective voice in pointing out the appalling degree to which servitude, forced labor and outright slavery still exist in today's world, even here. This book is a valuable primer on the persistence of these evils, their intricate links to poverty, corruption and globalization--and what we can do to combat them. He's a modern-day William Lloyd Garrison.”
--Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves

Here's the other bio. stuff: My book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy published in 1999, was nominated for the ...more

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Kevin Bales's Blog

New Book featured on FRESH AIR Tuesday 19 Jan

My new book, Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World will be featured on FRESH AIR on Tuesday 19 Jan.

To get a taste of the book, Scientific American has published an excerpt on their website http://www.scientificamerican.com/art....

“Bales travels from the tin mines of the Congo to the interior of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to further understand why slave- Read more of this blog post »

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Published on January 17, 2016 07:39

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Kevin Bales’s books

Average rating: 4.11 · 3,012 ratings · 332 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy 4.22 avg rating — 1,467 ratings — published 1999 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today by Kevin Bales (Goodreads Author), Ron Soodalter 3.90 avg rating — 628 ratings — published 2009 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World 4.10 avg rating — 380 ratings — published 2016 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves 4.06 avg rating — 198 ratings — published 2007 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People by Kevin Bales (Goodreads Author), Zoe Trodd, Alex Kent Williamson 4.09 avg rating — 104 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today's Slaves by Kevin Bales (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Zoe Trodd (Editor) 4.55 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader 4.16 avg rating — 51 ratings — published 2005 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Slavery Today 3.60 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 2008 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Modern Slavery: A Beginner's Guide really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2011 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	New Slavery: A Reference Handbook really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Kevin Bales (?)

“Slavery is not a horror safely confined to the past; it continues to exist throughout the world, even in developed countries like France and the United States. Across the world slaves work and sweat and build and suffer. Slaves in Pakistan may have made the shoes you are wearing and the carpet you stand on. Slaves in the Caribbean may have put sugar in your kitchen and toys in the hands of your children. In India they may have sewn the shirt on your back and polished the ring on your finger. They are paid nothing.

Slaves touch your life indirectly as well. They made the bricks for the factory that made the TV you watch. In Brazil slaves made the charcoal that tempered the steel that made the springs in your car and the blade on your lawnmower. Slaves grew the rice that fed the woman that wove the lovely cloth you've put up as curtains. Your investment portfolio and your mutual fund pension own stock in companies using slave labor in the developing world. Slaves keep your costs low and returns on your investments high.”
― Kevin Bales

tags: slavery

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“When the police become criminals, slavery can take root.”
― Kevin Bales

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“…consumers do look for bargains, and they don’t usually stop to ask why a product is so cheap. We have to face facts: by always looking for the best deal, we may be choosing slave-made goods without knowing what we are buying.”
― Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

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Kevin’s Quotes

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead

tags: activism, attributed-no-source, change, inspirational, life, philosophy, world

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