Perfect Red (Greenfield) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[An] intricate history.... Greenfield paints a broad historical panorama, never neglecting the intimate, eccentric, and often absurd human details.
Boston Globe

Greenfield does what the best historical authors do—follows the thread of a story through history without missing a stitch.
Cleveland Plain Dealer

With A Perfect Red, she does for [red] what Mark Kurlansky in Salt did for that common commodity.
Houston Chronicle

A gem of accessible history.
San Diego Union-Tribune

Delightful, rollicking history.... A fun read, well-supported by extensive research.
Los Angeles Times Book Review


Elusive, expensive and invested with powerful symbolism, red cloth became the prize possession of the wealthy and well-born, Greenfield writes in her intricate, fully researched and stylishly written history of Europe's centuries-long clamor for cochineal.
Publishers Weekly


Pirates! Kings! Beautiful ladies! Daring spies! Elements essential for a page-turning action/adventure thriller, yes, but who would think they'd turn up in a scholarly examination of a little-known substance called cochinea?... [E]minently entertaining and educational. —Carol Haggas
Booklist


Greenfield...brings a practitioner's knowledge to her study of cochineal, a dyestuff that the Spanish conquerors discovered in the great marketplaces of Mexico and soon brought to a world hungry for things red.... A smart blend of science and culture.
Kirkus Reviews