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Sto caricando le informazioni... A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (2005)di Amy Butler Greenfield
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Group read for museum reading group. Interesting enough to finish. ( ) Only reason I gave it three stars rather than four is that the prose is a little slow at times. Otherwise, it was pretty good. See my full review over in my blog here. This was a fasctinating book - so much information that I knew the top layer of, but had no idea all the history that lurked beneath! I love reading about how some tiny event, object or person can shift the entire world history ... and this book is full of those lovely gems. A more in-depth look at the entire timeline would take many many books, as this covers everything from ancient red dyes through Cortez and Spanish rule of the Americas, and on into 20th century chemical dye creations. So while the author basically paddled through the shallow end of the history swimming pool, she did it very well. I never felt like asking the book "but wait! what about that thing you mentioned earlier?" - all loose ends are tied up. A very well-written book - I don't think I ran across a single sentence that made me wince and think "needs an editor!" or "where was the proof-reader when this sentence was approved?". Very good work - direct, detailed, yet also gives a big-picture view of the history of not just red dye, but dye in general. The one quibble I have with the book is with the figures (illustrations/photos). The text references the photos by figure number ("see fig 2") - but the figures themselves ARE NOT LABELED THAT WAY. Gah! You have to physically count 1, 2, 3 etc in order to make sure you're looking at the correct figure. And there's no actual photograph of the item that has a starring role in the book, nor is there a photograph of the plant it lives on. Nor is there a photo of the dried, powdered dyestuff. But there is a scientific drawing in the figures that isn't even labeled or described on the photo page! Very very frustrating. Hundreds of pages in the book about this ingredient, and no photos of it. So while the writing gets 5 stars, the lack of photo labelling and lack of wanted photos takes it down to 3 stars - so averaged at 4. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
This book 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 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.--From publisher description. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)667.26Technology Chemical Technology Bleaching; Dyeing; Inks; Paints DyesClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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