recovered from geopolitics today. September 2025
by Ian Buruma
Few books capture the tectonic shifts underway in global political economy. Mining Is Dead. Long Live Geopolitical Mining does so with urgency and clarity. Rivera and Zamanillo’s central claim is stark: the old mining model—technical, peripheral, commodity-focused—is over. In its place rises geopolitical mining: the harnessing of critical minerals as instruments of power, legitimacy, and industrial strategy
The strengths
The book’s most compelling contribution is its framing. Mining is no longer about tonnes of ore; it is about who transforms those resources into industrial capacity. The authors emphasize three levers—speed, legitimacy, and industrialization—that decide whether a country becomes a rule-maker or a mere supplier
Their analysis is impressively global. From China’s long-term strategic vision and Africa’s emerging continental initiatives to the West’s bureaucratic malaise and Latin America’s fragmentation, the book surveys mining geopolitics with breadth and bite. Particularly strong is the treatment of illegal mining as strategic vulnerability—a subject too often left to NGO reports, but here connected convincingly to questions of sovereignty and global order
Finally, Rivera and Zamanillo write with narrative punch. Phrases like “mining performs but does not inspire” or “speed is no longer money, it is power” stick in the mind. For a sector often buried in technical jargon, this book gives mining a symbolic and political charge.
Where it could go further
The sweep of the book is ambitious, sometimes moving briskly from one continent to another. Some readers may wish for deeper case studies or more extended comparisons, especially when the authors outline “seven strategic lessons” and “four axes of action.” These programmatic sections are stimulating, but at times read more like a playbook than a grounded narrative.
Similarly, the call for “integral legitimacy”—building trust with communities while maintaining industrial speed—is both persuasive and idealistic. The challenges of achieving such balance are immense, and the book might have lingered more on the contradictions and tensions that will inevitably shape this process.
Mining Is Dead in dialogue with Breakneck
The most fruitful way to approach Rivera and Zamanillo’s book is to read it alongside Dan Wang’s Breakneck. At first glance, the two works tackle different subjects: Wang dissects China’s governance model, while Rivera and Zamanillo examine the geopolitics of minerals. Yet together, they form a strikingly coherent pair.
Wang’s thesis is that China is an engineering state, contrasting with the U.S.’s “lawyerly society.” His concern is state capacity: why Beijing can mobilize railways, bridges, or factories at breathtaking speed, while Washington gets stuck in legal disputes. Breakneck is about the software of governance—execution, vision, discipline.
Rivera and Zamanillo, by contrast, focus on the hardware of that execution: the copper, lithium, cobalt, and rare earths that make possible both China’s industrial surge and the West’s digital and green transition. If Breakneck explains how a state builds, Mining Is Dead explains what it needs to build with. One gives us the operating system, the other the raw materials.
The two books converge most sharply on China. Wang portrays an engineering state whose efficiency—sometimes ruthless—has delivered vast infrastructure and industrial might. Rivera and Zamanillo show how that same engineering instinct translated into an early, decisive bet on critical minerals: refining rare earths, securing lithium in Latin America, cobalt in Africa, and nickel in Indonesia
Put together, the argument is formidable: China is not only better at building, it has also cornered the materials that others need to build.
The U.S. and its allies appear, in both books, as hesitant players. Wang describes a society entangled in legalistic paralysis. Rivera and Zamanillo chart the West’s regulatory bottlenecks, financial caution, and legitimacy crises in mining—factors that explain why supply chains have slipped away. Wang worries about “lawyers,” Rivera and Zamanillo about “permits,” but the underlying story is the same: institutional sluggishness in the face of a faster rival.
Where they diverge is in tone. Wang often paints the U.S. as complacent and China as enviably capable. Rivera and Zamanillo are more balanced: they admire Beijing’s foresight but stress its environmental and social costs, while suggesting that Western societies retain important advantages in legitimacy and ESG standards if they can mobilize them with speed.
Why it matters
For policymakers, investors, and citizens alike, the message is bracing. The green transition, digital infrastructure, even national defense—all hinge on cobalt, lithium, rare earths, and copper. Whoever controls them controls the pace of the century.
Breakneck explains why China’s political model gives it speed. Mining Is Dead shows why the minerals behind that speed are no longer commodities, but strategic assets. Read together, the two books illuminate the defining tension of our era: a contest not just of governance models, but of material foundations.
The old mining, indeed, is dead. Rivera and Zamanillo ensure its successor is impossible to ignore.