Diamonds and War

<p> The mining of diamonds their trading mechanisms their financial institutions and not least their cultural expressions as luxury items have engaged the work of historians economists social scientists and international relations experts. Based on previously unexamined historical documents found in archives in Belgium England Israel the Netherlands and the United States this book is the first in English to tell the story of the formation of one of the world's main strongholds of diamond production and trade in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. The history of the diamond-cutting industry characterized by a long-standing Jewish presence is discussed as a social history embedded in the international political economy of its times; the genesis of the industry in Palestine is placed on a broad continuum within the geographic and economic dislocations of Dutch Belgian and German diamond-cutting centers. In providing a micro-historical and interdisciplinary perspective the story of the diamond industry in Mandate Palestine proposes a more nuanced picture of the uncritical approach to the strict boundaries of ethnic-based occupational communities. This book unravels the Middle-eastern pattern of state intervention in the empowerment of private capital and recasts this craft culture's inseparability from international politics during a period of war and transformation of empire.</p>