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Book Cover
E-book
Author Shield, Renée Rose

Title Diamond stories : enduring change on 47th Street / Renée Rose Shield
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, ©2002

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 233 pages) : illustrations
Series Anthropology of contemporary issues
Anthropology of contemporary issues.
Contents Diamonds, Jews, and the world -- Being there -- New York, Diamond Center -- Million dollar handshakes -- With loupe and Internet -- Diamonds, families, and time -- The courtly system of arbitration
Summary Sequestered within the heart of a cosmopolitan city is an exotic world-a place where diamonds, astronomically priced, are bought and sold on the strength of a handshake, and business disputes are resolved according to ancient Jewish principles of arbitration. Yet it is also a modern industry facing the same fundamental global changes affecting all businesses today. In Diamond Stories, Renée Rose Shield leads us into the unexamined realm of wholesale diamond traders in New York. Related to several well-respected traders, she had unprecedented access to a society normally closed to outside inquiry. Here she deftly blends her personal relationship and her anthropological training to provide an insightful exploration of this tradition-bound industry, the new challenges it faces, and the ways both industry and individuals adapt to and endure change. Shield begins with a fascinating history of diamond mining, combining the story of the De Beers cartel, the role of Jews in the trade, and the part diamonds have played both in war and liberation. Throughout, she incorporates commentary by current diamond traders. Succeeding chapters explore the evolving nature of both the global trade and the New York diamond district. Shield takes a close look at the increasingly complex ethnic makeup of the district, illuminates the rarely documented work done by women, chronicles the resilient system of arbitration, and reveals the ways in which many traders work well into their eighties and nineties. Their long lives of work, cushioned by the trade's social environment, offer hints for successful aging in general
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-227) and index
Notes Print version record
SUBJECT Metropolitan Museum of Art gnd
Subject Diamond industry and trade -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
Jews in the diamond industry -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
Jewish businesspeople -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
Diamond industry and trade
Jewish businesspeople
Jews in the diamond industry
Diamantenindustrie
Geschichte
Juden
Diamants -- Industrie et commerce -- New York (États-Unis ; État) -- New York (N.Y.)
Juifs -- États-Unis.
Hommes d'affaires juifs.
New York (State) -- New York
New York Staat
New York, NY
Juden.
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781501718199
1501718193