A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage And The Quest For The Colour Of Desire Paperback – 6 Jun. 2006

The author makes the story of cochineal come to life. Gripping and instructive at the same time. What a great book!

Very well researched, informative and readable. The authors ancesteors were apparently dyers and this appears to fuel the genuine enquiry in which the book draws light on such a fascinating history of colour. I found this book both useful and very inspiring. I will return to it.

Cochineal rules OKMassive amount of detail, geo-political/socio-industrial, fascinating. Not a book to read from cover to cover at one sitting, but to browse through, returning to earlier passages, zipping ahead; worth the having.Seems strange that the best of the red spectrum is through the death of a beetle. Highlighted is the harshness of lives where invaders meet indigenous peoples. Seems that we have much for which to thank William Perkins.

This book is an excellent piece of research into the history of RED. It includes many different aspects of color research.

Do not buy this edition, the illustrations in the middle are poor quality, black and white reproductions, which means you cannot see the detail on the images that you are directed to look at by the text - which is a shame, as the text itself is very interesting.