The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World

Timely corporate history--as exciting and poignant as any good tale of derring-do against great odds by all-too-flawed giants. - Kirkus Reviews

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