Tijl Vanneste is a researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon. He is author of Global Trade and Commercial Networks: Eighteenth-Century Diamond Merchants (2011).
A fascinating and extremely well-researched study of diamonds through the ages, from myths to monopolies. It is a long-awaited inquiry into the part these gems have played in the changing trade patterns over the passing centuries, mirroring the rise of colonialism and trading companies, and the increasing impact of ethical and environmental concerns in recent decades. Vanneste has done an excellent job of presenting his wide-ranging research in such a readable manner. --Jack Ogden, author of Diamonds: An Early History of the King of Gems Diamonds are a global commodity with a rich but violent history. Vanneste is an ideal guide to this history, combining the knowledge of a specialist with an eye for poignant details. He tells the whole story of diamonds, ranging across five centuries and five continents, and shows that the history of trade is also the history of race, gender, labor, and geopolitics. This is a sweeping and provocative history, told with one eye on the present. --Michael Bycroft, University of Warwick, coeditor of Gems in the Early Modern World