Michel Pastoureau is a historian and emeritus director of studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes de la Sorbonne in Paris. A renowned authority on the history of colors, symbols, and heraldry, he is the author of many books, including Blue, Black, Green, Red, and Yellow (all Princeton). His books have been translated into more than thirty languages.
[Pastoureau] traces the use and significance of the color from the walls of the Lascaux caves and liturgical robes to medieval chess boards and heraldry, to engraving and photography, and the work of the Impressionist painters and contemporary designers. . . . Thorough research and abundant illustrations. * Library Journal * A rich and encyclopedic exploration of the manifold ways in which Westerners have conceptualized the color white. ---Jesse Russell, New Criterion