Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fifteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.
--This text refers to the paperback edition.
Product details
ASIN
:
B0050CM1K0
Publisher
:
EJE Publications Ltd,Inc.; 2 edition (3 December 2013)
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
3.0 out of 5 starsOut of date, badly edited, very interesting information.
Reviewed in the United States on 26 January 2014
Verified Purchase
It's... odd to see a takedown of the diamond industry, dating back to the early '80s. A lot of the information in it is still applicable today, especially the part about trying to resell diamonds - you'll NEVER get back what you paid for it, much less make money on it.
As another reviewer pointed out, it's badly edited, with sections duplicated, sentences breaking off and resuming a couple of paragraphs later and the like.
Still - it's an interesting look at an interesting subject, and a cautionary tale - don't invest in diamonds. Buy them if you want because they're sparkly and pretty and your significant other will love you for it, but the idea you'll make a killing on them as an investment is a fool's hope.
By sheer force of advertising, De Beers managed to convince roughly everyone that a diamond is the best token of affection and that diamonds are a good investment. You might think that what constitutes the best token of affection is something that was determined long ago but, to Epstein's (and my) surprise, this is a relatively new idea, so recent that it was possible for Epstein to find out how it was done. The notion that big companies are able to control something as intimate as what a man gives a woman to show his love might be straight out of Orwell except that the story told here is considerably more detailed than anything Orwell imagined -- and is true.
To me it is a story about how we can be made to believe something not because the belief has a basis in fact but because the belief would benefit someone (in this case, the De Beers company). Now the belief in diamonds as a great investment seems to be coming to an end, as the last chapter in the book describes. I can't think of another book that so clearly shows how and how much our beliefs can be controlled.
3.0 out of 5 starsAn engrossing read with some serious errors
Reviewed in the United States on 19 February 2014
Verified Purchase
I purchased the book based on Epstein's reputation and previous works. The book is a very engrossing read about how the diamond was formed and how they manipulate and control the supply and cost of diamonds. Having said that, this particular Kindle edition appears to have some serious editoral flaws such as paragraphs out of order or being repeated. If you can get past these flaws, Epstein has written a book that will make you think before you buy that next piece of diamonf jewelery,