Diamonds are almost completely useless but prized above all other gems. Historically they have attracted crimes of passion and awful cold-blooded efficiency, have bedazzled the greatest filmstars and the most opulent courts, and provided the incentive for adventure, destruction and greed on a monumental scale. No one company is more identified with diamonds than the South African based De Beers.

Until the collapse of the Iron Curtain they controlled the diamond market. After the collapse, they still controlled it – once they had bought up most of the diamonds emerging from the former Soviet Union. They are secretive, discreet and very, very powerful. A strike in Northern Canada could hardly seem to trouble them. Except that it prefigured a diamond rush in a territory over which they had no influence by prospectors they did not own. And the strike promised enormous riches.

Here is the true story of the strike that upset the diamond kings, and with it the history of the world’s most acclaimed diamonds, the process by which they are cut, fashioned, smuggled and stolen, the legends and superstitions that are attached to them, the characters who comprise the great diamond prospectors and, above all, of the shadowy hand of De Beers for whom diamonds are forever.

From the award-winning author of "Diamond" A blazing exploration of the human love affair with gold that "combines the engaging style of a travel narrative with sharp-eyed journalistic expose" ("Publishers Weekly," starred review).
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold skyrocketed--in three years more than doubling from $800 an ounce to $1900. This massive spike drove an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the gold rush of the 1800s. In "Gold," acclaimed author Matthew Hart takes you on an unforgettable journey around the world and through history to tell the extraordinary story of how gold became the world's most precious commodity.
Beginning with a page-turning report from the crime-ridden inferno of the world's deepest mine, Hart traveled around the world to the sites of the hottest action in gold today, from the biggest new mine in China, to the highly secretive London gold exchange, and the lair of the world's most powerful gold trader in Geneva, Switzerland. He profiles the leaders of the gold market today, the nature of the current boom, and the likely prospects for the future. From the earliest civilizations, when gold was an icon of sacred and kingly power, Hart tracks its evolution, through conquest, murder, and international mayhem, into the speculative casino-chip that the metal has become. He ends by telling the story of the massive flows of gold that have occurred in the wake of the financial crisis and what the world's leading experts are saying about the profound changes underway in the gold market and the prospects for the future.
"Compelling, stylish, and impressively researched" ("The Boston Globe"), "Gold" is a wonderful historical odyssey with important implications for today's global economy.

The future of fiction is neither global nor national. Instead, Matthew Hart argues, it is trending extraterritorial. Extraterritorial spaces fall outside of national borders but enhance state power. They cut across geography and history but do not point the way to a borderless new world. They range from the United Nations headquarters and international waters to CIA black sites and the departure zones at international airports. The political geography of the present, Hart shows, has come to resemble a patchwork of such spaces. Hart reveals extraterritoriality's centrality to twenty-first-century art and fiction. He shows how extraterritorial fictions expose the way states construct "global" space in their own interests. Extraterritorial novels teach us not to mistake cracks or gradations in political geography for a crisis of the state. Hart demonstrates how the unstable character of many twenty-first-century aesthetic forms can be traced to the increasingly extraterritorial nature of contemporary political geography. Discussing writers such as Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Amitav Ghosh, Chang-rae Lee, Hilary Mantel, and China Mieville, as well as artists like Hito Steyerl and Mark Wallinger, Hart combines lively critical readings of contemporary novels with historical and theoretical discussions about sovereignty, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonialism. Extraterritorial presents a new theory of literature that explains what happens when dreams of an open, connected world confront the reality of mobile, elastic, and tenacious borders.

Modernism is typically associated with novelty and urbanity. So what happens when poets identify small communities and local languages with the spirit of transnational modernity? Are vernacular poetries inherently provincial or implicitly xenophobic? How did modernist poets use vernacular language to re-imagine the relations between people, their languages, and the communities in which they live? Nations of Nothing But Poetry answers these questions through case studies of British, Caribbean, and American poetries from the 1920s through the 1990s. With a combination of fresh insights and attentive close readings, Matthew Hart presents a new theory of a "synthetic vernacular"-writing that explores the aesthetic and ideological tensions within modernism's dual commitments to the local and the global. The result is an invigorating contribution to the field of transnational modernist studies. Chapters focus on a mixture of canonical and non-canonical writers, combining new literary histories-such as the story of how Melvin B. Tolson, while a resident of Oklahoma, was appointed Poet Laureate of Liberia-with analyses of poems by Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. More broadly, the book reveals how the language of modernist poetry was shaped by the incompletely globalized nature of a world in which the nation-state continued to be a primary mediator of cultural and political identity, even as its authority was challenged as never before. Through deft juxtaposition, Hart develops a new interpretation of modernist poetry in English-one that disrupts the critical opposition between nationalism and the transnational, paving the way for a political history of modernist cosmopolitanism.

Modernism is typically associated with novelty and urbanity. So what happens when poets identify small communities and local languages with the spirit of transnational modernity? Are vernacular poetries inherently provincial or implicitly xenophobic? How did modernist poets use vernacular language to re-imagine the relations between people, their languages, and the communities in which they live?
Nations of Nothing But Poetry answers these questions through case studies of British, Caribbean, and American poetries from the 1920s through the 1990s. With a combination of fresh insights and attentive close readings, Matthew Hart presents a new theory of a "synthetic vernacular"-writing that explores the aesthetic and ideological tensions within modernism's dual commitments to the local and the global. The result is an invigorating contribution to the field of transnational modernist studies. Chapters focus on a mixture of canonical and non-canonical writers, combining new literary histories--such as the story of how Melvin B. Tolson, while a resident of Oklahoma, was appointed Poet Laureate of Liberia--with analyses of poems by Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot.
More broadly, the book reveals how the language of modernist poetry was shaped by the incompletely globalized nature of a world in which the nation-state continued to be a primary mediator of cultural and political identity, even as its authority was challenged as never before. Through deft juxtaposition, Hart develops a new interpretation of modernist poetry in English-one that disrupts the critical opposition between nationalism and the transnational, paving the way for a political history of modernist cosmopolitanism.

The Last Iteration Of Dexter Maxwell is the first book in a series that takes the reader on an exciting journey to find out who Dexter Maxwell really is. The novel explores the intersection of different technologies and how they evolve subject to one another, and the intersection of science and faith. There are implicit thematic elements of sustainability and balance, and on the influence of information technology. -- Dex knows first-hand how tough it is living on the edge of a thoroughly technologized civilization in Grenver, Colorado. But it also has its perks. With his small league of street-smart outcasts, he's snarled the system with some of the most brazen stunts of the 22nd century. Not bad for an orphaned sewer rat that can't remember his childhood and will most likely end up iced for ages like any other criminal. No past, no future: no problem. As long as Dex has his friends and his mischief, he'll be alright. But after a botched stunt, Dex wakes up a foreigner in a brutal, bizarre underground city controlled by more than one shameless force-blind, a sword strapped to his back, and an old man telling him he's the vital component of the coming revolution. Dex can barely take in the reality of a new time before he's on the run, hunted by vicious assassins, and mixed up in a deadly plot a millennium in the making-and with the fate of two worlds at stake. -- Start an action-packed journey with THE LAST ITERATION OF DEXTER MAXWELL to find out who Dexter Maxwell really is. ADVENTUROUS SCIENCE FICTION SEASONED WITH SUSTAINABILITY.

Whether you know it or not, you become a chemist any time you step into a kitchen. As you cook, you oversee intricate chemical transformations that would test even the most hardened of professional chemists. Focussing on how and why we cook different dishes the way we do, this book introduces basic chemistry through everyday foods and meal preparations. Through its unique meal-by-meal organisation, the book playfully explores the chemistry that turns our food into meals. Topics covered range from roasting coffee beans to scrambling eggs and gluten development in breads. The book features many experiments that you can try in your own kitchen, such as exploring the melting properties of cheese, retaining flavour when cooking and pairing wines with foods. Through molecular chemistry, biology, neuroscience, physics and agriculture, the author discusses various aspects of cooking and food preparation. This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the science behind cooking.

The Baseball Stadium Tour is Re-loaded We've added two chapters including a trip to New York to visit the new Yankee Stadium that featured a major moment in baseball history. With a newly designed cover, come join Todd, Matthew and Nick on their journey to 30+ baseball stadiums Excerpt: The sun had set and it was pitch black in central Illinois farm country as I fumbled for my phone to call my two best friends - two of the biggest baseball fans I know, Matthew Hart and Sofoklis Nikiforos. No less than 10 minutes later I had both of them convinced that starting next spring, the three of us were headed on a three-man, no holds-barred, Baseball Stadium Tour.

The future of fiction is neither global nor national. Instead, Matthew Hart argues, it is trending extraterritorial. Extraterritorial spaces fall outside of national borders but enhance state power. They cut across geography and history but do not point the way to a borderless new world. They range from the United Nations headquarters and international waters to CIA black sites and the departure zones at international airports. The political geography of the present, Hart shows, has come to resemble a patchwork of such spaces. Hart reveals extraterritoriality's centrality to twenty-first-century art and fiction. He shows how extraterritorial fictions expose the way states construct "global" space in their own interests. Extraterritorial novels teach us not to mistake cracks or gradations in political geography for a crisis of the state. Hart demonstrates how the unstable character of many twenty-first-century aesthetic forms can be traced to the increasingly extraterritorial nature of contemporary political geography. Discussing writers such as Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Amitav Ghosh, Chang-rae Lee, Hilary Mantel, and China Mieville, as well as artists like Hito Steyerl and Mark Wallinger, Hart combines lively critical readings of contemporary novels with historical and theoretical discussions about sovereignty, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonialism. Extraterritorial presents a new theory of literature that explains what happens when dreams of an open, connected world confront the reality of mobile, elastic, and tenacious borders.

Stop Hating the Middle, and Embrace What It's Secretly Doing for Your Company Let's be honest: There's nothing we like more than beating up on middle managers. They have a reputation for being useless at best, and at worst, the resource-sucking noise that cripples a company. But recent studies have found that there's a secret sauce to great companies who get great results, and its not just great workers or great leaders. Instead, it's great middle management that is holding complicated, messy, sophisticated endeavors on track. From the characteristics of great middle managers to the work they must do to ensure successful results, Matthew Hart covers what it takes to be truly great at the Middlework.

SECOND HARVEST is the second book in a series called "The Last Iteration" that takes the reader on an exciting adventure. The series explores the intersection of different technologies and how they evolve subject to one another, and the intersection of science and faith.There are implicit thematic elements of Smart Cities, Internet of Things and a Connected World of Everything as well as biotechnology that are integrated from a point of view on sustainability. Blurb: Faced with the cold brutality of Ashion the Dark and his thugs, Dexter Maxwell did something no time shifter had ever done before: he traveled back in time permanently. Now he must live the same thirty days again. But with Ashion and the local warlord hunting him, will there be enough time to save his new-and old- friends? On Venus, Ashion can't stop the subterranean resistance led by the man they call Fuel. But to keep his tenuous position as Security Lead, he must keep Dexter Maxwell's true identity hidden. That puts his daring plot to escape the grip of the Ruling Families in jeopardy-and is making it even harder to protect the last two people on Venus he needs alive: the mysterious Prisoner Six and the young girl Kat. The clock is ticking: the Ruling Families of Venus have set the Second Harvest in motion. As their chilling plan unfolds, four hundred years of betrayals put Dexter and Ashion on a deadly collision course ... and unlock an ancient threat to civilization.