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Loading... A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desireby Amy Butler Greenfield
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Greenfield’s history of the color red is about as thorough as one can get. She starts with a history of dyeing, then moves into the discovery of the cochineal, its proliferation and biology, and finally into a quick look into fashion and status. There are times when she seems unfocused and the chronology is disjointed, but each facet of this history has its own slant and requires a different timeline. This book has a little bit of everything—history, biology, chemistry, sociology. A quick and interesting read. (  ) NielsenGW | Mar 22, 2009 |  an easily read history of the pursuit of a color. I thought it was going to be a history of cochineal but it was more than that - and less. The book has a nice flow to it and has the feel of a rather long essay than that of a book. As a history it is short with the actual pages of writing numbering around 250. The author never really tells the reader about the cochineal insects life cycle, so this is not a natural history, but it isn't really a history of the color red either. A nice pleasant read for an arm chair historian or naturalist. (  ) benitastrnad | Aug 12, 2008 | One of the most interesting books I've ever read and very well written! CatheyMerrill | Sep 12, 2007 | A fascinating history of our search for the elusive 'perfect red', from the days of plant extracts to the height of the cochineal craze to chemical dyes and back again. Well written and researched, this was a fascinating book, although most of it centers around cochineal and the story of artificial dyes is given somewhat short shrift. ( ) Meggo | Jul 10, 2007 | One of my coworkers rolled their eyes when I told them I had bought a history of the color red. While she rolled her eyes because why on earth you want to read about a color, others will no doubt roll their eyes because it is not a deep scholarly work with lots of foot notes and things. More over it is a history of a color, not of the dyes used to make it something that I suspect many readers (and even the author at a couple of points) may forget. That said I think it's an interesting book, one that left me wanting to learn more about some of the things it touched on when I reached the end. Now it's not brilliant, but it is a pleasant read. (  ) oxocerite | Apr 22, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune.
Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal. Did it come from a worm, a berry, a seed? Could it be stolen from Mexico and transplanted to their own colonies? Pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies -- all joined the chase for cochineal, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. A Perfect Red tells their stories -- true-life tales of mystery, empire, and adventure, in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:58 -0400)
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