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ECONOMICS AND DEVELOPMENT Diane Frost. From the Pit to the Market: Politics and the Diamond Economy of Sierra Leone. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K.: James Currey, 2012. xxi + 226 pp. Photographs. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. $34.95. Paper.
This is an earnest and well-meaning book about an important subject. Unfortunately, it suffers from a surfeit of pseudo-economics, industrialstrength omissions, and multiple errors of fact. In the latter category: we learn that Blood Diamonds (sic) is a Steven Spielberg film (xvii) (Blood Diamond was directed by Ed Zwick); that the De Beers advertising slogan "A diamond is forever" was taken from a 1956 Ian Fleming novel (5) (the slogan was created by an American ad firm, N. W. Ayer, in 1948-Fleming took it from De Beers); that diamonds are cut in India and then polished in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo (5-6) (diamonds are polished where they are cut); that in 1969 Sierra Leone's President, Siaka Stevens, "buckled under pressure" and finally nationalized the diamond industry "so that the government could more tightly control illicit mining" (11) (in fact, Stevens eagerly nationalized the industry so he and his cronies could get their hands on the loot, making themselves rich and...