For­eign Pol­icy presents A Trail of Dia­monds — a photo essay fol­low­ing the dia­mond trade from mine to bride.

It reminds me of a Janine Roberts inter­view (author of Glit­ter and Greed) where she dis­cusses how the manip­u­la­tion of sup­ply and adver­tis­ing cre­ated the myth of the dia­mond wed­ding ring and made Ernest Oppen­heimer (who was in con­trol of De Beers) a very rich man.