A Cultural History

The World According to Colour

'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.'

A brilliantly fluent and readable history of colour

Fairly shimmers with Fox's eye for arresting facts and anecdotes

Intelligent, vividly written ... I'm going to buy three copies

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

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

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

James Fox is an academic and multi-award-winning, BAFTA-nominated broadcaster, known for his many acclaimed BBC documentaries. He is Director of Studies in History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Creative Director of the Hugo Burge Foundation, a charity dedicated to supporting the arts and crafts across Britain. He is also the author of the celebrated The World According to Colour: A Cultural History.

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 chapter 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.'

White Mischief

A true life account of a brutal murder that scandalized colonial Kenya, taking us deep into the decadent heart of British high-society and its imperial tensions.

A story which is as compelling and violent as a thriller, but which also happens to be one of the most dazzling feats of reportage in recent years

It is a measure of James Fox's remarkable achievement that in White Mischief he not only produces an impeccably researched and lucidly written "last word" on this notorious case but also brings these astonishing people and their perplexed lives so vividly and compellingly to life

A fascinating piece of investigative reporting that possesses all the resonance of a social history and the drama of a good mystery...[and] a narrative strategy that allows the reader the excitement of watching a tenacious reporter piece together the truth

Leave P.D. James on the shelf, tuck Dick Francis away in the saddlebag, James Fox's investigation has everything you look for in a thriller

James Fox was born in Washington DC in 1945 and educated in England. He worked as a journalist for the Sunday Times and the Observer in Africa and then in England, and has written for numerous other publications. His other books include The Langhorne Sisters and co-authorship of Life, Keith Richards' bestselling autobiography. White Mischief was made into a movie starring Greta Scacchi and Charles Dance.

Just before 3am on January 24th, 1941, when Britain was preoccupied with surviving the Blitz, the body of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick, at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi, with a bullet in his head. 
 
A leading figure in Kenya's colonial community, the Earl had recently been appointed Military Secretary, but he was primarily a seducer of other men's wives. Sir Henry Delves Broughton, whose wife was Erroll's current conquest, had an obvious motive for the murder, but no one was ever convicted and the question of who killed him became a classic mystery, a scandal and cause celebre. 
 
Among those who became fascinated with the Erroll case was Cyril Connolly who joined up with James Fox for a major investigation of the case in 1969 for the Sunday Times magazine. After his death James Fox inherited the obsession and a commitment to continue in pursuit of the story both in England and Kenya in the late 1970s. One day, on a veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean, Fox came across a piece of evidence that seemed to bring all the fragments and pieces together and convinced him that he saw a complete picture...

James Fox

An impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in Britain

Craftland is a book that shimmers with love for a dwindling world of meticulous, patient labour … Lyrical … Deftly written and well researched

Superb … A book with many highlights … [Fox] brings his critical intelligence to platform the usually silent process of mastering a craft. I read the book with admiration not only for the remarkable subjects individually, but also the human spirit that unites them all

If you want to know about Britain and yourself, read this book … This is a tremendous book that urges us – in spite of the seductions of crass modernity – to believe in the craftspeople, living and dead, who made us who we are.

Meet the weavers, watchmakers and wheelwrights keeping Britain’s noble craft traditions alive … Fox effortlessly persuades the reader about the superiority of all things crafted

This hugely absorbing book is so full of stories of crafts and craftspeople and communities, and of creativity over the ages. It’s such an important story to tell and told so compellingly. Wonderful

Beautiful, eye-opening and surprisingly moving - a treat to treasure

Lucy Worsley, author of Jane Austen at Home

A beautifully crafted book – akin to the beautifully crafted objects it describes … What a treat to discover facts and stories that feed the heart and prove that craft is as ever present as it has forever been

It is so rare to come across a book brimming with fresh news and seasoned with hope. James Fox uncovers a largely hidden history which is still alive all around us today. I read it in two gulps with delight

A dazzling combination of evocative prose and meticulous research, Craftland is an impassioned undertaking and novel portrait of the country’s past and how we might rethink our future

This extraordinary book is essential reading. It will leave you awestruck at the complexity and persistence of the crafts that shaped our world, and inspired to engage more deeply with our vanishing material world of objects and skills. Anyone who has ever felt a disconnection from modern life will find themselves irresistibly drawn in

Brillian[t] … I recommend that the book be read slowly, section by section, so all the details can be appreciated

A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our identities, built our communities and shaped our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that once governed every aspect of life on these shores. 
 
Travelling the length of Britain, from the Scilly Isles to the Scottish Highlands, James Fox seeks out the country’s last remaining master craftspeople. Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and coopers, bell-founders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life — one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could shape our future. 
 
For as long as there are humans, there will be craft. It is all around us, hiding in plain sight, enriching even the most modest things. And in this increasingly digital age, it is perhaps more valuable than ever. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living.

James Fox

Praise for Craftland

An impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in Britain

Craftland is a book that shimmers with love for a dwindling world of meticulous, patient labour … Lyrical … Deftly written and well researched

Superb … A book with many highlights … [Fox] brings his critical intelligence to platform the usually silent process of mastering a craft. I read the book with admiration not only for the remarkable subjects individ ...

An impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in Britain

Craftland is a book that shimmers with love for a dwindling world of meticulous, patient labour … Lyrical … Deftly written and well researched

Superb … A book with many highlights … [Fox] brings his critical intelligence to platform the usually silent process of mastering a craft. I read the book with admiration not only for the remarkable subjects individ ...

An impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in Britain

Craftland is a book that shimmers with love for a dwindling world of meticulous, patient labour … Lyrical … Deftly written and well researched

Superb … A book with many highlights … [Fox] brings his critical intelligence to platform the usually silent process of mastering a craft. I read the book with admiration not only for the remarkable subjects individ ...

Books by James Fox

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter