About the book: 2010 / Sometimes it’s worth looking at long-familiar objects from a different angle, and the world will immediately sparkle with new colors. Popular British journalist Victoria Finley invites readers to take a walk along the rainbow and learn a lot about the history of common colors. Did you know that women all over the world to this day often paint their lips with blood, without knowing it, and Napoleon was quite likely driven fashionable green wallpaper to the grave? What color are mourning robes in China? How many mollusks had to give their lives so that Julius Caesar could boast of a purple robe? Is a simple pencil so simple? What should you feed cows to make yellow dye from their urine? To answer these and many other questions, the desperate Englishwoman traveled half the world, including Australia, Mexico, Libya, China and even Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The result was a fascinating book about how artists, craftsmen and scientists tried to recreate the rainbow, and how how did it affect the world around us.