From Publishers Weekly
New York's diamond business is an insular world. Yet thanks to introductions from relatives in the business, anthropologist Shield (Uneasy Endings: Daily Life in an American Nursing Home) gained access to the industry's inner sanctum: West 47th Street in Manhattan. Once there, she interviewed diamond dealers, brokers and manufacturers the majority of them Orthodox and Hasidic Jews and then merged her findings with anthropological observations to illuminate the history and culture of New York City's diamond industry. This modest, accessible if somewhat academic volume, part of Cornell's Anthropology of Contemporary Issues series, covers a lot of ground, including the fundamentals of diamond mining; the origins of Jews' entry into the trade; the minutiae of the business, which still observes verbal contracts and handshakes; the role of the influential Diamond Dealers Club of New York; and the process of arbitration, the system the industry uses to resolve conflicts. Shield also pays particular attention to women's functions in the trade (Orthodox Jews and Hasidic sects are highly patriarchal cultures in which women have often been excluded from the marketplace), the vagaries of being part of a family business and the aspects of the business that allow many men to work well past typical retirement age. Though perhaps too detailed and scholarly for a wide, popular audience, the book offers a window into an enigmatic sector of society that, as Shield ably portrays, balances on the cusp between the traditional and the modern. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
"Renee Rose Shield gives us an inside look at the diamond industry. Her stories sparkle with warmth, humor, and insight."--Eli Izhakoff, Chairman and CEO, World Diamond Council
"When I first heard someone was doing an anthropological study on the diamond industry, I thought, "Great idea!' Now that I've read it, I can add,'Great book!' The diamond world is a business unlike any other, with its own cultures, rules and traditions Renee Shield is a lively, insightful guide to this mysterious and fascinating world."--Rob Bates, Editor, New York Diamonds Magazine
"True to its subject, the complex world of the contemporary diamond merchant, this book offers a multi-faceted, well written, and sensitively rendered account of why this precious gemstone has taken hold of both our imagination and our pocketbooks."--Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character and the Promise of America
"Renee Rose Shield explores the fascinating world of diamond traders in a lively and engaging narrative, weaving together economics, geology, business, sociology, and culture."-- Helen Fremont, author of After Long Silence: A Memoir
"This is a jewel of a book whose facets include commerce, gender, aging, and ethnicity. Simultaneously biblical, local, and global in her scope, Shield cuts to the heart of a community-an unusual place of trade and tradition-with great eloquence and insight."--Joel S. Savishinsky Charles A. Dana Professor in The Social Sciences, Ithaca College, Author , Breaking The Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
