Look at All the Colors

If you're the kind of person who can see in color -- and I deeply apologize to those who can't -- it's an easy thing to take for granted, but it doesn't take much research to see how the subtlest changes in hue can change a person's worldview.

Drunk Tank Pink isn't all about color, but it uses color as a launching point to discuss all the little influences in our lives. Beginning with prison guards' enthusiastic use of pink to calm down the recently detained, the book explores how your name, your culture, the weather, the presence or absence of other people and a million tiny things affect how you view the world.

But colors themselves can be interpreted just as many ways. ROY G. BIV happily points out that there had been a place and time where baby boys were dressed in pink and baby girls were dressed in blue. The book is full of color trivia and gives you a good chance to think about all the ways the world has seen its colors.

And now that we have an idea about how people interpret color, there's got to be a way to make money from it. The Color Revolution starts with the invention of synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century and investigates how businesses and governments used color to get us to buy things, wear things, do things and change the way we interact with all the colors of the world.

So the next time you see the color red, stare at it awhile and think. You'll find yourself thinking for hours about what that shade of red could mean.