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The Heartless Stone: A Journey Throught the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire
Books: Travel: Brazil: Item 2
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The Heartless Stone: A Journey Throught the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desireby Tom Zoellner
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9 of 18 people found the following review helpful: Review from 13 year Jewelry industry vet and G.G., June 16, 2006 Reviewer:G.G. (Cincinnati, OH USA) - I was suspicious when I saw this book release on Diamonds.net News. I just had to read the book to see a layperson's reaction to the industry. I was pleasantly surprised!!! Mr. Zoellner did a great job of investigating all the major mining and cutting centers, as well as the key corporate players. I was even more impressed with his reference list in the back of the book. I read every source and now admire his ability to take a topic, research it thoroughly, and come to his own conclusions based on facts. Maybe some other readers can take note of this. One can not read an article in the New York Times, see an add payed for by anyone with a deep enough pocket, or soak in the reports from the media without digging a little deeper. Thank you Mr. Zoellner! And thanks to the US goverment (Patriot Act) and the Diamond Industry (Kimberley Process)for putting in place laws to protect consumers and the world from terrorist who launder money through diamonds. I am proud to be in this industry and happy people can mark life defining events with the majesty of a diamond!
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After his fiancée dumps him and he's left with a diamond ring to unload, Men's Health contributing editor Zoellner crisscrosses the globe unlocking the mystique of this glittering stone "that brings misery to millions of people across the world." Zoellner probes how "blood diamonds" are used to fund vicious civil wars in Africa; how De Beers, seeing new markets to exploit, linked diamonds to the ancient yuino ceremony in Japan and played on caste obsession in India; and how India is pushing Belgium and Israel out of the gem trade. The author is expert with vivid prose: Australia's Argyle deposit is "shaped a little like a human molar"; impoverished urchins in the diamond-smuggling haven of the Central African Republic get high on bread-and-shoe polish sandwiches; and a Brazilian miner finds a rich concentration of river diamonds but fritters away much of the loot on prostitutes and booze, and eventually is ruined by a dishonest money changer. Politically conscious consumers can now avoid African and Brazilian mines teeming with human rights abuses. Canada pulls $1.2 billion worth of rough diamonds out of the tundra every year while enforcing tough environmental laws, and a Florida company uses Siberian high-pressure chambers to create low-cost chemically perfect diamonds. This is a superior piece of reportage. (June)
Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Jilted by a fiancee, journalist Zoellner mulled over the emotions churned up by the return of the diamond engagement ring and decided to write up the diamond industry. A fluid account, somewhat similar to Matthew Hart's Diamond: Journey to the Heart of an Obsession (2001), Zoellner's is distinct for its astuteness about the psychology of diamond marketing. Presenting the example of postwar Japan, where De Beers created demand for diamonds out of thin air, Zoellner alludes as needed to the meaning attached to an engagement ring as he constructs a travelogue to remote, dangerous regions. At the base of the supply pyramid, Zoellner finds destitute miners in the Central African Republic and Brazil. Prosperity is not much more evident in India, where the author tours cutting and polishing factories; the money is concentrated in London, headquarters of De Beers. Zoellner's sharp, observant descriptions of people and places will sensitize readers to the wider processes of monopoly, smuggling, and war, all of which lurk in the background when a suitor buys a ring for his beloved. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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