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

Chronicles the history of the De Beers diamond mines, from Johannes De Beer’s humble South African ranch to the Oppenheimers’ vast empire. By the author of A Journal of the Plague Years.

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.