Black: The History of a Color

"For Pastoureau, the history of any color must be a social history first because it is societies that give colors everything from their changing names to their changing meanings - and black is exemplary in this regard. In dyes, fabrics, and clothing, and in painting and other art works, black has always been a forceful - and ambivalent - shaper of social, symbolic, and ideological meaning in European societies."--BOOK JACKET.