Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire
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In the sixteenth century, one of the world's most precious commodities was cochineal, a legendary red dye treasured by the ancient Mexicans and sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors. 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. As the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans joined the chase for cochineal — a chase that lasted for more than three centuries — a tale of pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies unfolds. A Perfect Red evokes with style and verve this history of a grand obsession, of intrigue, empire, and adventure in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth. The Washington Post - Diane Ackerman Greenfield has given us a superbly researched history of cochineal red, full of angles and tangents, curiosities and arcana. Some anecdotes bog down, but most are sprightly and charming. I enjoyed learning, for example, that when 25-year-old John Donne (later to win fame as a poet) joined a massive expedition under the command of the earl of Essex, he and his fellow sailors returned home with a dusty fortune pillaged from Spanish galleons: 27 tons of pirated cochineal.
Prologue : the color of desire11The dyer's lot52The color of the sun183An ancient art344The emperor's new dye455A profitable empire536Cochineal on trial697Legacies878Trade secrets1029Pirates' prize11010Wormberry12511Through the looking glass14312A curious gamble15713A spy in Oaxaca16514Anderson's incredible folly18315Red and revolution19816Scarlet fever20917A lump of coal22118Renaissance dye235Epilogue : cheap color248
