The Heartless Stone
By Tom Zoellner (St. Martin¹s Press; 304pp; $24.95)
Once upon a time, a man called Tom Zoellner fell in love with a young woman with long blond hair. He asked her to marry him; she said yes. He gave her diamond ring. But happily ever after didn’t happen: She broke the engagement and returned the ring. Zoellner became haunted by the diamond ring that he couldn’t stand to look at it.
Fortunately for readers, Zoellner is a journalist who decided to explore his compulsion to buy a diamond ring to mark his engagement in the first place.
His world trek resulted in “The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire,” a gripping narrative that weaves parts of Zoellner’s personal experience against the fascinating backdrop of the diamond industry, from visits to both “dirty” and legitimate mines in the Central African Republic to Cambridge Bay 280 miles above the Artic Circle where a Canadian company is looking for diamonds; and at the Argyle Deposit in Australia, “the discovery of which happened to coincide with the emergence of a cutting and polishing industry in India,” another stop on Zoellner’s itinerary.
All of these yield great stories, as do chapters on the DeBeers (“diamonds are forever”) cartel and on the discovery – in post-Cold War Russia – of a process that makes real diamonds in a machine. But the answers to Zoellner’s personal quest are found in the way DeBeers has used advertising to brainwash whole populations into believing traditions – such as men giving women diamond rings when they propose – exist when, in fact, those traditions are wholly the creation of advertising. DeBeers initiated it first in the U.S. in 1938; they later created a market for diamond engagement rings in Japan in the 1960s despite diamonds never having any part in Japanese culture. With American women marrying later now, or not at all, and the engagement market in Japan drying up, they’ve found new ways to manufacture “traditions” and keep their product in demand.
Zoellner’s experiences left him jaded by the diamond industry, but readers will find “Heartless Stone” a compelling book no matter how they feel about those hard, glittery gems.
