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Former Time correspondent Kanfer has delivered a first-rate history of the De Beers Diamond Cartel and, consequently, a look at business practices in South Africa over the last two centuries. The De Beers history focuses basically on three men: ruthless founder Cecil Rhodes, who gave the company its identity; his successor, the passionate and shrewd Ernest Oppenheimer; and finally Oppenheimer's son, Harry, who led the cartel into the current age. Throughout, Kanfer paints these three mostly as tremendous businessmen. The frantic Rhodes, who triumphed over several opponents during the early diamond rushes in South Africa in the mid-nineteenth century and on through the battle for government supremacy with the Dutch Boers in 1898, comes across as an often brutal tyrant whose eccentric personal style makes him a fascinating character. Ernest Oppenheimer, constantly trying to overcome his Jewishness, is one of the most impressive businessmen ever profiled, as he personally leads the cartel to new heights despite both world wars and the Depression. Finally, the anti-apartheid Harry Oppenheimer is faced with the most difficult challenge of all: doing business despite constant attack from both pro- and anti-apartheid forces. This glib but thorough history is a fascinating look at the history of a business and its affects on South Africans, both white and black. Joe Collins
Copyright© 1993, American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews , June 15, 1993
From veteran Time editor Kanfer (A Summer World, 1989, etc.): an enjoyable history of De Beers, the great business empire that founded a country, helped start a war, and funded the legendary Rhodes scholarships. Kanfer begins with the discovery, in 1867, of the first diamond in South Africa, found by a farm boy who noticed ``in the glare of the sun a glittering pebble.'' That pebble was the first of a great mother lode of diamonds to be found in this arid area of South Africa along the Orange...

Synopsis
Chronicles the history of the De Beers diamond mines, from Johannes De Beer's humble South African ranch to the Oppenheimers' vast empire. By the author of A Journal of the Plague Years.

Synopsis
With a scholar's precision and a novelist's eye, Stefan Kanfer tells the inside story of De Beers Consolidated Mines--from the 19th century diamond rush that transformed Johannes De Beer's humble South American farm into an exotic klondike to the Oppenheimers' shadow empire that has achieved unmatched global reach.