Aja Raden • Historian, Author & Cultural Critic
95. Aja Raden on Diamonds, Luxury and Lies
Aja Raden began her career designing engagement rings before turning to writing, using books like Stoned and The Truth About Lies to trace how objects come to be considered valuable, and what happens when that agreement breaks down.
In this episode, Anant Sharma sits down with Aja to unpack the myth-making behind the modern diamond industry, how De Beers and N.W. Ayer engineered scarcity where none existed and tied it so tightly to love that "diamonds are forever" became gospel.
They also discuss the panic now gripping the Natural Diamond Council as lab-grown diamonds undercut the very story the industry built itself on and the origin story of the beads that bought Manhattan.
A conversation about scarcity, storytelling, and what happens when an industry gets trapped by the mythology it invented.