Blood and Diamonds

[A] deeply researched, often horrifying…study of the country’s entanglement in the diamond trade. – Joshua Hammer * New York Review of Books *
An excellent history…Looks at the story through the prism of diamonds…His careful economic history makes clear the importance of diamonds to the survival of the colony and to Germany’s economic reach at the time. – Nicolas van de Walle * Foreign Affairs *
Through the rigor, subtlety, and elegance of his work, Press has produced one of the most thought-provoking recent books in this field. – Jean-Michel Johnston * H-Diplo *
Absorbing…Press masterfully interweaves the history of diamonds and empire with international economics and consumption, racism and genocidal violence, and the complexities of metropole-colony relations…An insightful, fascinating, and important book. * Choice *
Press shows that the diamond wealth flowing from German Southwest Africa was crucial to both the development of German colonialism in Africa and Germany’s broader global engagement. – Stephen Morgan * African Studies Review *
An engaging examination into an important aspect of German colonialism in the pre-WWI period. – Brian de Ruiter * International Social Science Review *
Empirically rich and elegantly written, Blood and Diamonds will be received as an important landmark in the history of German colonialism and more broadly as an examination of the entanglements between colony and metropole. Press aptly combines meticulous scholarship with remarkable narrative talent. – Andreas Eckert, Humboldt University, Berlin
Explores a short-lived diamond boom in German Southwest Africa for what it reveals about the wider impact of this commodity and possible continuities of violence from the colonial to the Nazi era…makes an important contribution to ongoing debates about the colonial legacy of ‘blood diamonds’ that will reinvigorate discussions about extractive institutions under liberal imperialism and the breaks and continuities in German and colonial history. – Erik Grimmer-Solem * Journal of Modern History *
Steven Press has written a disturbing, brilliant book. Courageous and deeply researched, Blood and Diamonds brings out the full measure of transnational intrigue, cutthroat capitalist competition, and sheer callousness at the center of this long-hidden, disheartening human catastrophe. A stunning new history. – Helmut Walser Smith, author of Germany: A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After Nationalism, 1500–2000
Steven Press’s history of conflict diamonds from Namibia under German rule shows German colonialism in a new light and in a broader context, extending into the Nazi era and beyond. Diamonds were a colonial fantasy with all-too-real consequences of premature death for African workers and of Germans’ renewed anti-Semitism and willingness for war. Fluently written, provocative, and hugely informative. – Lora Wildenthal, author of German Women for Empire, 1884–1945

Steven Press is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University and author of Rogue Empires.

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