Details

olour. An aide-mémoire <p><b>I. CLOTHING</b></p> <p>In the beginning was yellow</p> <p>Turbulent stripes</p> <p>The navy-blue blazer</p> <p>Subversive trousers</p> <p>A particular blue</p> <p>From the garment to the myth</p> <p>Colour against flesh</p> <p>Neutral shades in good taste</p> <p>Mitterand beige</p> <p>Slimming colours</p> <p>In the London Underground</p> <p><b>II. DAILY LIFE</b></p> <p>My mother's pharmacy</p> <p>The sad tale of young Philippe</p> <p>Sweet-dispensers</p> <p>Choosing a colour: an impossible undertaking?</p> <p>Greyness</p> <p>Metro tickets</p> <p>Red or blue?</p> <p>Traffic lights</p> <p>Colour and design: a missed chance?</p> <p>Eating colours</p> <p><b>III. THE ARTS AND LETTERS</b></p> <p>In a painter's studio</p> <p>A painter caught between two volumes</p> <p>In darkened halls</p> <p>Ivanhoe</p> <p>'Vowels'</p> <p>The Red and the Black</p> <p>Chrétien de Troyes at the cinema</p> <p>Pink pigs and black pigs</p> <p>When Dalí assigned marks</p> <p>The colours of a great painter</p> <p>Historians without colours</p> <p>The workings of time</p> <p><b>IV. ON SPORTS GROUNDS</b></p> <p>Goals and referees</p> <p>The yellow bike</p> <p>Bartali and the Italian flag</p> <p>The Tour de l'Ouest</p> <p>Colour by default</p> <p>Easy colours and difficult ones</p> <p>Pink and orange</p> <p><b>V. MYTHS AND SYMBOLS</b></p> <p>Little Red Ridinghood</p> <p>Long live school Latin</p> <p>My discovery of heraldry</p> <p>The black cat</p> <p>Green superstitions</p> <p>The colour of destiny</p> <p>Furling the colours</p> <p>A historical object that is alarming</p> <p>Playing chess</p> <p>Wittgenstein and heraldic colours</p> <p><b>VI. ON TASTES AND COLOURS</b></p> <p>An American gift</p> <p>Sunbathing through the years</p> <p>The 'bling' of the 1950s</p> <p>A brief history of gold</p> <p>A mysterious shade of green</p> <p>Do you see red clearly?</p> <p>No purple for children</p> <p>The whims of memory</p> <p>Preferences and opinion polls</p> <p><b>VII. WORDS</b></p> <p>Brown and beige</p> <p>Spelling and grammar</p> <p>A day at the races</p> <p>The zero degree of colour</p> <p>A part that stands for the whole</p> <p>The Greek blue</p> <p>The demise of nuances</p> <p>Speaking of colours without showing them</p> <p>What is colour?</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Index</p> <p>A few helpful chronological details</p>

“<i>The Colours of Our Memories</i> is…history, memoir, semiotics, a study of material culture and perceptual change – all wrapped into an engagingly readable, accessible narrative full of intriguing topics that few people ever think about unprodded but will find invariably interesting, even fascinating.” <br /><i><b>Consciousness, Literature and the Arts</b></i>

<b>Michel Pastoureau</b> is chair of the history of medieval symbolism at the École pratique des hautes études and one of the world’s leading authorities on the history of colours. His many previous books include <i>Blue</i>, <i>Black</i>, <i>Green</i>, <i>Red</i> and <i>Yellow</i>.

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