Greg Campbell - Blood Diamonds: Tracing The Deadly Path Of The World's Most Precious Stones

I got this book at a used book sale a few years ago after seeing Blood Diamond in 2006, but never got around to reading it. It was written in the early 2000s by Greg Campbell, a journalist investigating the conflict diamond trade and the civil wars that were spawned around it.


The book was definitely well written, and gave a lot of excellent background information for those not familiar with the region and with the international diamond trade. Chapters are devoted to the history of Sierra Leone and the slave trade, the illegal arms trade, the mining process, and the history and practices of De Beers, which dominates the diamond industry. I thought that Campbell also did an excellent job of switching between testimonies of the victims of the civil war in Sierra Leone, the perpetrators, and the politics that were at work. Also fascinating was his description of the link between the illegal diamond trade and international terrorism, specifically Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

He does a good job of adding a sense of realism to the book as well. One part that I particularly appreciated was when he compared the statistics and optimism of the UN leaders with the realities on the ground. Namely, that while some child soldiers had been disarmed and many adult soldiers had given up their weapons, many were feeling tricked and angry and those who were still armed were still illegally mining diamonds.

One problem I did have was with the tone of parts of the book. At times Campbell seems to be looking down on everything and everyone. Descriptions of some of the villages or the refugee camps seem not just to be describing the squalor but are somewhat contemptuous of the inhabitants as well. One example of this that particularly stuck out for me was when Campbell and his photographer were in a small refugee village with the UN. Campbell, tired of the poor conditions he was in and frustrated because his research was taking longer and was more difficult than he had anticipated, demanded a place on one of the planes being used to evacuate the sick and some disarmed child soldiers rather than wait to leave when he had planned. While I understand his eagerness to be out of the situation, I couldn't help but wonder if he and his photographer were taking up space that might otherwise have gone to refugees.

One thing I had to keep in mind was when the book was written. The bulk of his work was done towards the tail end of the civil war in Sierra Leone, with the epilogue addressing things that had happened until about 2003. Since that time, Sierra Leone has been mostly peaceful and far more democratic than it had been, and neighbouring Liberia (which was discussed extensively in the book) has transformed into a mostly functional democracy and has extradited former dictator Charles Taylor to the Hague. I would very much like to read the updated version of the book that has just been released.

In general, I would greatly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to learn more about blood diamonds, but I would suggest purchasing the 2012 version rather than the 2003 version that I have.