It is a very rare phenomenon for a major scholar like Nina Jablonski to write both for an academic audience (see her 2006 book, Skin: A Natural History) and a general audience a few years later. The challenges are enormous: how to summarize vast amounts of research that move across many disciples (evolutionary biology, human anatomy and physiology, paleontology, anthropology, nutrition, psychology, and culture -- to name just a few) without trivializing the insights of specialists OR numbing the mind of non-specialist readers. Anyone who wants to understand why skin color has acquired the meanings we give it should read both books, but I suspect that most readers will find the more recent book entirely sufficient.
But "Living Color" is far,far more than sufficient: it is provocative without being polemical. Jablonski marshalls an astonishing academic literature that sheds light on the historical development of skin color -- why and how it developed -- and then illuminates the various ways that culture have attributed meaning to visual difference. So deeply was the instinct not just to "see" but to "evaluate" that the travel literature from early European explorers confirmed prejudices that they had brought to their voyages. "Color" thus became an integral feature of colonization. Being "color blind" was never an option.
But everyone already knows this, right? What was new for me was how "color" was as a signifier within the same color group -- not just between groups. I didn't know about the differences between genders either. The adjectives that we have learned to name races are just that -- and very imprecise at that. (I am old enough to remember a Crayola named "flesh.") Who knew that Vitamin D plays such an important role in human development and health? I didn't. Where would I learn about the impact of "tanning salons" for cultures that value a particular hue or "skin whitening" for cultures that seek to avoid it?
The book is lavishly illustrated and carefully indexed -- a rarity in books written for a general audience. It even has a first-rate bibliography. I cannot imagine a more helpful or humane introduction. The author is erudite but wears her learning lightly. The use of side boxes is a bonus for clarifying complex issues, and there is not a single illustration that I would omit. I do wish, however, that the publisher had reprinted all of the plates found in the 2006 volume in this book -- they are relevant here as well.
Serious readers? Read both books, but if you have time for only one, I strongly recommend "Living Color."
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Kevin Wright
Rare secrets from history. Everyone needs this book (adult)
Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2021
Tegegn
I was glad and thankful after I read it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2015