Part travelogue, part narrative history, ` Colour` unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, & reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded & used. This remarkable & beautifully written book remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, & yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, & how an entire nation was founded on the colour violet. Exciting, richly informative, & always surprising, ` Colour` lifts the lid on the historical palette & unearths an astonishing wealth of stories about the quest for colours, & our efforts to understand them.