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Lead book review

Pink for boys, blue for girls and a worldwide mania for mauve

Honor Clerk explores the history of the world through colour, from the Stone Age to orbiting the Moon

9 October 2021

9:00 AM

9 October 2021

9:00 AM

The World According to Colour: A Cultural History James Fox

Allen Lane, pp.300, 25

The Colour Code: Why We See Red, Feel Blue and Go Green Paul Simpson

Profile Books, pp.352, 14.99

It would seem, if recent publications are anything to go by, that we have an insatiable appetite for this subject. A quick search of books on colour throws up six titles in just the past three years, a further half dozen published as a set in February this year, another volume in a series by the Sorbonne academic Michel Pastoureau and now these two.

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