Jewels: A Secret History (Paperback)

by Victoria Finlay (Author)
Key Phrases: jet workers, amber mine, ruby mines, Coober Pedy, Sri Lanka, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Gems seem to be moving to the literary forefront, with The Hope Diamond out in May and The Heartless Stone: A Journey through the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire due in August. In her follow-up to Color, Finlay looks at diamonds and eight more of the world's most coveted gemstones. In each chapter, she discusses the jewel's history and travels to the stone's place of origin: abandoned emerald mines in Egypt, working opal mines in Australia, a pearl-fisher's home in Scotland and an Apache reservation that holds most of the world's supply of peridot. Finlay is also fascinated by the lengths to which people will go to fabricate jewels: one company manufactures diamonds from cremated human remains. While each journey holds its own charms—Finlay's trek to Sri Lanka to uncover the pedigree of a family heirloom sapphire is particularly enjoyable—they don't fully gel into a cohesive whole, and detailed stories about, say, the way one Japanese entrepreneur transformed the world's pearl market are juxtaposed with historical trivia. Still, Finlay's winning personality may well be enough to keep readers turning the pages. 8 pages of color and b&w illus. throughout. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Inspired by the engagement ring she'd received from her fiance, Finlay set off on a journey that literally took her around the world intent on uncovering the history behind some of the planet's most valuable gems. Her investigation of amber takes her to a much--diminished mining town in Russia, where Stalin once had a gulag full of people to work the mines. Finlay visits with former pearl fishers in Scotland who used to search the rivers for mussels before they became endangered. In Egypt she discovers the truth about Cleopatra's legendary emerald mines, while in Burma she goes on a more personal journey to trace the roots of a sapphire her father bought for her mother. She lays out the myth of the supposedly cursed Hope diamond before debunking it as a tall tale made up by Pierre Cartier to make a sale. Part personal journey, part historical anecdote, this rich, comprehensive book will no doubt appeal to jewelry lovers curious about the story behind the sparkle. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (August 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345466950
• ISBN-13: 978-0345466952
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #273,936 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #6 in	Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Mineralogy > Gems
  #84 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Natural Resources > Rocks & Minerals

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparkling History, August 21, 2006

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Jewels: A Secret History (Hardcover)

"It is an ordinary gemstone," writes Victoria Finlay of the sapphire in a ring given to her by her parents, "yet like most other ordinary gemstones it has a good story to tell, if you go looking for it." Go looking she does, not only for the story of that sapphire but for those of other gems, and yes, she found good stories and writes them up in _Jewels: A Secret History_ (Ballantine Books). Indeed, she values the stories more than the stones' rarity, perfection, or size. She set out to tell stories of nine different stones, from semi-precious to precious, and from two to ten on the Mohs hardness scale. The scale, invented in 1825 by mineralogist Freidrich Mohs, simply rates stones and other substances by what they can scratch and what scratches them; talc rates a one and diamond, the hardest substance known, rates a ten. Finlay ranges her chapters from softest stone to hardest: amber (Mohs somewhere between gypsum 2 and calcite 3), through jet, pearl, opal, peridot, emerald, sapphire, ruby, and finally diamond. (It is interesting that value tends to increase with hardness, indicating that we place a premium on durability.) Even the biggest stones, Finley notes, are objects that are really rather small, but the stories encompass great swaths of human history and technical expertise.

I will mention here only her quest for amber, for which she visits the Polish Baltic coast, a source for the stone. You may know the sticky sap that is oozed out when a pine tree is injured, and amber is the fossilized version of the same thing. Its origin is mysterious, because for amber to have become the geologic deposit as it is now found, huge numbers of evergreens (the species of tree is no longer with us) must have been hit with some sort of disease or other stress. Amber is the stuff that entrapped the mosquito that had dined on the blood of the dinosaur which yielded the DNA to build the monsters of the movie Jurassic Park. Its prices rose sharply when that movie came out in 1993, demonstrating our whimsical notions of value. Finlay goes to the University of Gdansk where is located the Museum of Amber Inclusions, and a guide indeed shows her insects trapped within. There is a particularly strange sample that looks like a long fly, only it has twelve legs; it turns out to be two flies caught by the sap during copulation. She attends the Amber-Washing Championships at Jantar, Poland, in the expectation that she would even herself be able to wade into the sea to fish out amber with the rest of the competitors, but finds that the sea no longer easily yields this treasure. Competitors on the beach were looking for amber pieces as big as shirt buttons planted by the organizers. "The whole thing was as exhilarating as a grape-peeling competition" she grumbles. The local supply of amber comes from a mine in an ex-Soviet Gulag "even bleaker than I had expected." It is a constant theme: gems may sparkle, full of richness, but the areas from which they are extracted are grimly impoverished.

Finlay has mined the historic literature for good stories; her debunking of the story of the curse of the Hope Diamond, for instance, is hilarious. She has also gone to the countries involved with each gem, and literally descended into the mines. She has funny stories, like being in a taxi stalled for an elephant parade in Sri Lanka (elephant parades are good for the sapphire business, as such a gem that has been worn on an elephant tusk is believed to have been blessed by Buddha himself). She has undergone no small amount of risk on these excursions. She has skillfully interviewed sometimes reticent subjects within the mines or within the business of bringing jewels to market, and employs judiciously the colorful anecdote. The historic and social results of our fascination for these useless rocks ("You can't eat them, you can't read them, you can't shelter under them ..." she quotes a Burmese taxi driver as saying) are on display here, as colorful and surprising as any of the gems themselves.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jewels - Not Only for Jewel Lovers , September 7, 2006

By	Mathew B. Smith Jr. "Amante dei Libri" (Walnut Creek, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Jewels: A Secret History (Hardcover)

For anyone who is interested in the fascinating story of some of the worlds most popular types of jewels, this book is for you. For anyone who is interested in visiting little know and remote parts of our planet, this book is for you. For anyone who is interested in better understanding why people are mesmerized by beautiful objects and why other people undertake dangerous jobs to find them, this book is for you.

The author not only shares the fascinating history of how these jewels have been used throughout history but she tells the even more fascinating story of those who make their livings finding and selling them. Ms Finlay has not let distance or danger inhibit her desire to see first hand where the gems come from and to speak with those who spend, and often risk, their lives in their pursuit. Their stories are as interesting and varied as the stones themselves. Like Patrick Leigh Femor and other top travel writers, this author seems to be able to put almost anyone at ease and entice them to tell her their stories with amazing candor. She has then been able to blend historical facts and current circumstances into a really fascinating read.

For me, her quest was really to better understand why jewels which, while beautiful, are basically useless command so much time, effort and even in some cases human lives in their production. After reading this book I believe that each person will be able to form their own answer to this question.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A rainbow of gems and an interesting read, March 5, 2007

By	K. Maxwell "katmax1" (Perth, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Jewels: A Secret History (Hardcover)

With this book - which is effectively a sequel to her book on colour - Victoria Finlay investigates the history, myth and reality of the jewels we often place so much status on. She starts with Amber the softest of the semi-precious jewels and works her way through to Diamonds, which are much more common and not as indestructible as the jewellers and marketers would have us believe.

This is an interesting read, and while not exhaustive, will still manage to tell some new stories about gemstones even if you have read many other books on the subject. A combination of travel diary, history and general knowledge this book is educational and may make some readers view the stones in their jewel box in a new light. And as for "birth stones" - read the appendix at the end, it may open your eyes on one of the great marketing hoaxes.