The World According to Colour

admirable ... The World According to Colour is a brilliant cultural history ... This intelligent, vividly written book is full of such black, red, yellow, blue, white, purple and green nuggets.

Laura Freeman, The Times

a tour de force ... he weaves together the historical, cultural and scientific background to provide context for a succession of bravura insights ... this is a brilliant book

Honor Clerk, The Spectator

In this compelling book, James Fox shows that the meanings connected to particular colours aren't arbitrary but are instead materially, socially and culturally determined ... One of a flurry of recent books on colour, Fox's is distinguished by his broad historical approach and by the diversity of perspectives and sources ... The greatest pleasure of this book is the way Fox's essays move fluently between the material, moral and historical ... This is a book that makes you want to paint.

Joad Raymond, BBC History Magazine

the book is a pleasure... a compelling and elegant...a rare achievement - a scholarly reference work that invites reading for pleasure.

Florence Hallett, i news

fascinating...In this book (Fox) has gifted each of us a manual to navigate and enjoy the extraordinary design of the world around us.

Anna Galbraith, Mail on Sunday

Fox glides into intellectual spaces; colour becomes a philosophical feast - astrophyscis, the origins of civilisation, a palette of moral associations. Though dazzling, everything has a point: when Fox shoots, he scores. You never see it coming, then suddenly all the pieces fit together as though they were meant to be

Ed Smith, New Statesman Books of the Year

For once, no problem with Christmas presents this year. The World According to Colour by James Fox is a brilliantly fluent and readable history of colour, galloping across a wide cultural and scientific landscape.

Honor Clerk, Spectator Books of the Year

Flits with enthusiasm and lightly worn learning from Bronze Age gold-workers to Turner, Titian to Yves Klein

Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)

Colour becomes a philosophical feast - astrophysics, the origins of civilisation, a palette of moral associations

Ed Smith, New Statesman (Books of the Year)

A manual to navigate and enjoy the extraordinary design of the world around us

Anna Galbraith, Mail on Sunday

A book that makes you want to paint

Joad Raymond, BBC History Magazine

Leads down some wonderful rabbit holes

Chris Allnutt, Financial Times