Diamond - Matthew Hart

Diamond

The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair

(Autor)

Buch | Softcover
304 Seiten
2003
Fourth Estate Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-84115-280-6 (ISBN)
13,70 inkl. MwSt
The history of man’s love affair with a completely useless gem.


Diamonds are almost completely useless but prized above all other gems. Historically they have attracted crimes of passion and awful cold-blooded efficiency, have bedazzled the greatest filmstars and the most opulent courts, and provided the incentive for adventure, destruction and greed on a monumental scale. No one company is more identified with diamonds than the South African-based De Beers.


Until the collapse of the Iron Curtain they controlled the diamond market. After the collapse, they still controlled it – once they had bought up most of the diamonds emerging from the former Soviet Union. They are secretive, discreet and very, very powerful. A strike in Northern Canada could hardly seem to trouble them. Except that it prefigured a diamond rush in a territory over which they had no influence by prospectors they did not own. And the strike promised enormous riches.


Here is the true story of the strike that upset the diamond kings, and with it the history of the world’s most acclaimed diamonds, the process by which they are cut, fashioned, smuggled and stolen, the legends and superstitions that are attached to them, the characters who comprise the great diamond prospectors and, above all, of the shadowy hand of De Beers for whom diamonds are forever.

Matthew Hart is a writer and diamond expert. He has contributed articles on diamonds in Atlantic Monthly Review and othe journals. He has previously published two novels and a non-fiction account of a gold prospectors.

Erscheint lt. Verlag 3.2.2003
Zusatzinfo (10 integ b/w photos and maps), Index
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 129 x 198 mm
Gewicht 220 g
Themenwelt Sachbuch/Ratgeber Natur / Technik
Geisteswissenschaften Geschichte
Naturwissenschaften Geowissenschaften Mineralogie / Paläontologie
Sozialwissenschaften
Technik Bergbau
Wirtschaft Betriebswirtschaft / Management
ISBN-10 1-84115-280-3 / 1841152803
ISBN-13 978-1-84115-280-6 / 9781841152806
Zustand Neuware
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