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A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire
Paperback
Technology & EngineeringColorGeneral World History
Publisher Price: $19.99
ISBN13: 9780060522766
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: Apr 25 2006
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.61
Height: 0.87 Width: 5.28 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
You'll finish [Greenfield's] book with new respect for color, especially for red. With A Perfect Red, she does for it what Mark Kurlansky in Salt did for that common commodity.--Houston Chronicle
Interweaving mystery, empire, and adventure, Amy Butler Greenfield's masterful popular history offers a window onto a world far different from our own: a world in which the color red was rare and precious--a source of wealth and power for those who could unlock its secrets. And in this world nothing was more prized than cochineal, a red dye that produced the brightest, strongest red the Old World had ever seen.
A Perfect Red recounts the story of this legendary red dye, from its cultivation by the ancient Mexicans and discovery by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors to the European pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies who joined in the chase to unlock its secrets, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. It evokes with style and verve this history of a grand obsession, of intrigue, empire, and adventure in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.
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