The World According to Colour A Cultural History
James Fox
Paperback (06 Apr 2023)


Publishers Synopsis

Extraordinary. An intellectual feast as well as a visual one
Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

The world comes to us in colour. But colour lives as much in our imaginations as it does in our surroundings, as this scintillating book reveals. Each chapter immerses the reader in a single colour, drawing together stories from the histories of art and humanity to illuminate the meanings it has been given over the eras and around the globe. Showing how artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, explorers and inventors have both shaped and been shaped by these wonderfully myriad meanings, James Fox reveals how, through colour, we can better understand their cultures, as well as our own. Each colour offers a fresh perspective on a different epoch, and together they form a vivid, exhilarating history of the world. We have projected our hopes, anxieties and obsessions onto colour for thousands of years, Fox writes. The history of colour, therefore, is also a history of humanity.


Book information

ISBN: 9780141976655
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint: Penguin Books
Pub date: 06 Apr 2023
DEWEY: 701.85
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Sales rank: 8005
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 284g
Height: 197mm
Width: 128mm
Spine width: 20mm