Read Ñ Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World PDF by ✓ Catherine E. McKinley eBook or Kindle ePUB free

McKinley's journey in search of beauty and her own history ultimately leads her to a new and satisfying path, to finally "taste life." With its four-color photo insert and sumptuous design, Indigo will be as irresistible to look at as it is to read.. For almost five millennia, in

• Title : Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World
• Author : Catherine E. McKinley
• Rating : 4.97 (795 Vote)
• Publish : 2016-7-8
• Format : Hardcover
• Pages : 256 Pages
• Asin : 1608195058
• Language : English

McKinley's journey in search of beauty and her own history ultimately leads her to a new and satisfying path, to finally "taste life." With its four-color photo insert and sumptuous design, Indigo will be as irresistible to look at as it is to read.. For almost five millennia, in every culture and in every major religion, indigo-a blue pigment obtained from the small green leaf of a parasitic shrub through a complex process that even scientists still regard as mysterious-has been at the center of turbulent human encounters.Indigo is the story of this precious dye and its ancient heritage: its relationship to slavery as the "hidden half" of the transatlantic slave trade, its profound influence on fashion, and its spiritual significance, which is little recognized but no less alive today. It is an untold story, brimming with rich, electrifying tales of those who shaped the course of colonial history and a world economy.But Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan as their virile armor; the kin of several generations of Jewish "rag traders"; the maternal granddaughter of a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and the paternal granddaughter of African slaves-her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan r

From Publishers Weekly In this memoir of longing, community, and personal maturation, McKinley (The Book of Sarahs), half African-American by birth, adopted and raised by white parents who were plant devotees, seeks her roots through the intertwined European and African history of the once rare indigo. McKinley's passion for the rare blue dye—created from ash, urine, and leaves, and used to painstakingly imprint storytelling designs—leads to intense friendships and an introduction to the complexity of social and economic status in a continent so far removed from the woman who inspired McKinley's journey—her grandmother—a questioning, tartan-clad woman in a rich blue coat. (June) . McKinley's journey to the source of indigo leads her unexpectedly to politically unstable areas like the Ivory Coast, as well as to Ghana, Mali, and other African countries, where she is welcomed. A plant dye long prized for its deep

Catherine McKinley is the author of The Book of Sarahs. She lives in New York City. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she has taught Creative Nonfiction, and a former Fulbright Scholar in Ghana, West Africa, where she began her research on indigo.

It's the no-frills, pre-published edition complete with typos and inexpensive binding. And McKinley's quest for indigo becomes a quest for herself, for meaning. The writing is eloquent and poetic, the descriptions vividan excellent reminder of what good writing looks like. It is simply a color, then a livelihood, then a political tool, then an art medium, then a link to the rapidly vanishing African past, then a euphemism for life, death, and everything in-between. More please!. I have nothing personal against Ms. But McKinley has sparked an interest in me, a desire to see for myself some of the things she brought to life in the pages of her book. However, I prefer entertainingly written non-fiction and was sorely disappointed. Buyer beware: the book's cover description, 'In Search of the Color that Seduced the World', leads one to assume that the main subject of the book will actually be about the color indigo's historical legacy and manufacture. This isn't just a history of indigoit's also a seamless series of travel essays, a memoir, a social, political, and cultural commentary, and lastly -- an unflinching homage to Africa and art. To add insult to injury, this is an astonishingly boring travelogue that jumps around a lot and attempts to involve us in a narrative that is only connected by a gossamer thread to anything related to the book's title.. M