This first academic history of diamond mining in Kimberley is a major study of the beginning of South Africa's mineral revolution. It includes the first analysis of the formation of De Beers Consolidated Mines, one of the most successful mining companies ever to have been established in Africa. Based on new documentary sources, notably in the Standard Bank Archive, the Rothschild archive and the Philipson Stow Papers, it includes a new interpretation of the Black Flag revolt and of the celebrated amalgamation struggle between Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato for the control of the diamond-mining industry.