'Extraordinary. An intellectual feast as well as a visual one' Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes The world comes to us in colour. But colour lives as much in our imaginations as it does in our surroundings, as this scintillating book reveals. Each chapter immerses the reader in a single colour, drawing together stories from the histories of art and humanity to illuminate the meanings it has been given over the eras and around the globe. Showing how artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, explorers and inventors have both shaped and been shaped by these wonderfully myriad meanings, James Fox reveals how, through colour, we can better understand their cultures, as well as our own. Each colour offers a fresh perspective on a different epoch, and together they form a vivid, exhilarating history of the world. 'We have projected our hopes, anxieties and obsessions onto colour for thousands of years,' Fox writes. 'The history of colour, therefore, is also a history of humanity.'

Colour is everywhere. From blue skies to red sunsets, from the first flowers in spring to the blazing leaves of autumn. But what is the nature of colour? Scientific books present a variety of mechanical explanations but this approach leaves colour as a whole unexplained. In the nineteenth century, the German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe investigated a wide range of colour phenomena and discovered the underlying principles that govern colour itself. This lavishly illustrated book brings Goethe's pioneering research up to date. Through descriptions of simple observations and ingenious experiments, the reader will discover a series of colour phenomena that includes afterimages, coloured shadows, colour mixing, and prismatic and polarisation colours. Seeing Colour is a thought-provoking read for colour enthusiasts and experts alike, and an accessible route to a new way of seeing colour.

This fully realized colour catalogue includes elegant contemporary illustrations of every animal, plant or mineral cited in Syme's edition of “Werner's nomenclature of colours”

Beginning with simple sensory experiences and experiments, the author leads us to an understanding of colours, rainbows and colour circles (as created by Goethe, Rudolf Steiner, and Harald Kuppers). In addition to explaining the basic and complementary colours and the mystery of coloured shadows, he also gives a commentary on the psychology and mythology of colours.

Colour makes our lives more interesting — how dull it would be in a black-and-white world! It pleases us aesthetically, entertains us and is useful to us. This unique book aims to describe the scientific nature of colour and light, and how we see it, in an accessible and easily understandable style. The evolution of the eye, science of colour and technical visual systems are all broken down into readable chapters, with clear images and illustrations provided for reference. The book then goes on to discuss the innate tendency of humankind to produce artistic works as conceived, realised and augmented through the use of colour. Focussing on broad forms of artistic entertainment — painting with pigments and dyes, colour and light in photography and cinematography, light displays and colour in television — this book then delivers a comprehensive review of what colour means and has meant in the creative arts.

Brilliant examination of evolution vs creationism and of Intelligent Design by an award-winning author. ‘What is consciousness? Is evolution compatible with traditional religion? Does time exist or is it just our way of ordering experiences? Could a machine ever think? What do scientists really mean when they call something a fact?’ Modern science has unravelled the mystery of life, seen back to the dawn of time and peered down into the weird world of quantum mechanics. Small wonder then that people now look to science to answer the big metaphysical questions. In Falling for Science Bernard Beckett shows this instinct to be misguided. According to Beckett, the modern fashion for making scientists ‘the High Priests of Everything’ is mysticism in a lab coat. Here the author argues for a new model of scepticism, one which leaves scientists and story tellers to each get on with what they’re best at. Beckett is a powerful, persuasive communicator who writes in the contemporary vein of popular science writers like Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond. With wit and not a little irreverence, Beckett offers a history of the ideas behind recent scientific development, and introduces the reader to arguments about the nature of consciousness, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence – and more. Brilliantly unsettling, Falling for Science is compulsively readable.