David De Vries is a Professor of History at the Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University. His primary research interests are modern labor and business history of Palestine and Israel. Among his publications are Idealism and Bureaucracy in 1920s Palestine: The Origins of Red Haifa (1999, in Hebrew); Dock Workers: International Explorations in Labour History, 1790-1970 (2000, co-edited); the re-publication of the diary of Henya Pekelman, The Life of a Woman-Worker in Palestine (2007, co-edited, in Hebrew); and, Diamonds and War: State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine (2010).

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Diamonds and War - State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine מאת David De Vries The book unfolds the formation in Mandate Palestine of what has become one of the world's main strongholds of diamond production and trade. It discusses the history of diamond-cutting characterized by a long-standing Jewish presence as a social history embedded in the international political economy, and it places its genesis on a wider continuum of geographic and economic relocation of Dutch, Belgian and German diamond centers. The book situates the Jewish diamond manufacturers and workers, the transplantation of their know-how, and their strategies in the reciprocal relations with both the British-Colonial and Zionist institutions; and through them with the networks and sources of diamond supplies, marketing targets and international competitors. based on archives in Belgium, England, Israel, the Netherlands and the USA the book unravels the Middle-eastern pattern of state intervention in the empowerment of private capital. At the same time it recasts the inseparability of a craft culture from international politics in a period of war and transformation of empire....