Large diamond gemstones have no use except to arouse wonder and awe and, most importantly, to affirm status. Before the twentieth century only the truly rich could afford them. But the growing wealth of the European middle classes provided a tempting new market for diamond miners. The problem faced by the company DeBeers, which in 1902 controlled 90 percent of the world’s diamond production, was how to sell to this much bigger market without devaluing the gems in the process. They managed it through a cunning marketing campaign: by concocting the phrase “Diamonds are forever,” they invented
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