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"Diamond mines and mining"
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Diamonds : an early history of the king of gems
\"A lavishly illustrated, in-depth early history covering two thousand years of diamond jewelry and commerce, from the Indian mines to European merchants, courts, and workshops This richly illustrated history of diamonds illuminates myriad facets of the \"king of gems,\" including a cast of larger-than-life characters such as Alexander the Great, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, and East India Company adventurers. It's an in-depth study tracing the story of diamonds from their early mining and trade more than two thousand years ago to the 1700s, when Brazil displaced India as the world's primary diamond supplier. Jack Ogden, a historian and gemologist specializing in ancient gems and jewelry, describes the early history of diamond jewelry, the development of diamond cutting, and how diamonds were assessed and valued. The book includes more than one hundred captivating illustrations, from historic diamond-set jewelry, some previously unpublished, to photomicrographs of individual gems, medieval manuscript illustrations, and Indian miniatures, as well as diagrams depicting historical methods of cutting and polishing diamonds.\"--Jacket flap.
Book
Diamonds : an early history of the king of gems
A lavishly illustrated, in-depth early history covering two thousand years of diamond jewelry and commerce, from the Indian mines to European merchants, courts, and workshops This richly illustrated history of diamonds illuminates myriad facets of the \"king of gems,\" including a cast of larger-than-life characters such as Alexander the Great, the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and East India Company adventurers. It's an in-depth study tracing the story of diamonds from their early mining and trade more than two thousand years ago to the 1700s, when Brazil displaced India as the world's primary diamond supplier. Jack Ogden, a historian and gemologist specializing in ancient gems and jewelry, describes the early history of diamond jewelry, the development of diamond cutting, and how diamonds were assessed and valued. The book includes more than one hundred captivating images, from close-up full-color photographs of historic diamond-set jewelry (some previously unpublished), to photomicrographs of individual gems and illustrations of medieval manuscripts, as well as diagrams depicting historical methods of cutting and polishing diamonds.
eBook
Facets of Power
The diamond fields of Chiadzwa, among the world s largest sources of rough diamonds have been at the centre of struggles for power in Zimbabwe since their discovery in 2006. Against the backdrop of a turbulent political economy, control of Chiadzwa s diamonds was hotly contested. By 2007 a new case of blood diamonds had emerged, in which the country s security forces engaged with informal miners and black market dealers in the exploitation of rough diamonds, violently disrupting local communities and looting a key national resource. The formalisation of diamond mining in 2010 introduced new forms of large-scale theft, displacement and rights abuses. Facets of Power is the first comprehensive account of the emergence, meaning and profound impact of Chiadzwa s diamonds. Drawing on new fieldwork and published sources, the contributors present a graphic and accessibly written narrative of corruption and greed, as well as resistance by those who have suffered at the hands of the mineral s secretive and violent beneficiaries. If the lessons of resistance have been mostly disheartening ones, they also point towards more effective strategies for managing public resources, and mounting democratic challenges to elites whose power is sustained by preying on them.
eBook
The global diamond industry
\"The Global Diamond Industry: Economics and Development brings together a collection of papers covering various aspects of the diamond industry including economics, law, history, sociology and development. These volumes are motivated by one objective alone and that is to provide intellectual light where none exists. The diamond industry is one that is long steeped in secrecy and each chapter and even each well researched anecdote helps others to understand this commodity and what are at times mysterious operations of the industry. This first volume presents literature tackling broad issues around the structure of the industry and demand and pricing of diamonds\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Diamonds in the rough : corporate paternalism and African professionalism on the mines of colonial Angola, 1917-1975
Diamonds in the Rough explores the lives of African laborers on Angola's diamond mines from the commencement of operations in 1917 to the colony's independence from Portugal in 1975. The mines were owned and operated by the Diamond Company of Angola, or Diamang, which enjoyed exclusive mining and labor concessions granted by the colonial government. Through these monopolies, the company became the most profitable enterprise in Portugal's African empire. After a tumultuous initial period, the company's mines and mining encampments experienced a remarkable degree of stability, in striking contrast to the labor unrest and ethnic conflicts that flared in other regions. Even during the Angolan war for independence (1961–75), Diamang's zone of influence remained comparatively untroubled.
Todd Cleveland explains that this unparalleled level of quietude was a product of three factors: African workers' high levels of social and occupational commitment, or \"professionalism\"; the extreme isolation of the mining installations; and efforts by Diamang to attract and retain scarce laborers through a calculated paternalism. The company's offer of decent accommodations and recreational activities, as well as the presence of women and children, induced reciprocal behavior on the part of the miners, a professionalism that pervaded both the social and the workplace environments. This disparity between the harshness of the colonial labor regime elsewhere and the relatively agreeable conditions and attendant professionalism of employees at Diamang opens up new ways of thinking about how Africans in colonial contexts engaged with forced labor, mining capital, and ultimately, each other.
eBook
The Lion that Didn't Roar
In 2017 it will be Australia’s turn to chair the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP), an international organisation set up to regulate the trade in diamonds. Diamonds are a symbol of love, purchased to celebrate marriage, and it is therefore deeply ironic that the diamond trade has become linked with warfare and human rights violations committed in African producer countries such as Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and, more recently, Zimbabwe and Angola. In their quest for diamonds, or by using diamonds to purchase weapons, armed groups in these countries have engaged in recruiting child soldiers, amputating limbs, and committing rape and murder. In response to the problem, the international community, non-governmental organisations and key industry players such as De Beers combined forces to create the Kimberley Process in 2002. The KP uses an export certificate system to distinguish the legitimate rough diamond trade from so-called ‘blood diamonds’, which are also known as ‘conflict diamonds’. This book considers the extent to which the KP, supported by other agencies at the international and national levels, has been effective in achieving its mandate. In so doing, it presents an original model derived from the domain of regulatory theory, the Dual Networked Pyramid, as a means of describing the operation of the system and suggesting possible improvements that might be made to it.
eBook
King Solomon's Mines
A famed elephant hunter embarks on a perilous African treasure hunt in this classic tale that launched the long-running Allan Quatermain series. Sir Henry Curtis's brother has disappeared into the uncharted African interior.
eBook