A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage,
and the Quest for the Color of Desire

Amy Butler Greenfield
Harper Collins, New York
2005, 261 pp.
Price: $26.95 (hardcover), ISBN 0-06-052275-5

This book is advertised as a search for the “elusive” brilliant red dye. The dust jacket describes piracy, espionage, and war as being elements of this story. Initially, that sounded like a romanticized exaggeration (particularly as the book begins rather slowly), but it is not. Woven into the story of the “discovery” of cochineal dye by Spanish colonists are many threads of Western history. These include colonial exploitation, power struggles among the “major world powers” (Spain, England, and France), and tales of espionage, of covert attempts to overthrow legitimate rulers, of corrupt leaders and more corrupt businessmen, and of “terrorism” by illegal and legalized piracy on the high seas. Along with the unfolding story of cochineal and Western European history emerges the story of the growth of biology and chemistry from their roots in “natural philosophy” and “alchemy” to the mature sciences of today. This integration of scientific history with world history is particularly interesting to scientists because the author presents the maturation of science as critical to the emerging understanding of the chemical and biological nature of cochineal dye.

When the potential of cochineal was first realized by Europeans, “natural philosophers” believed in the spontaneous generation of life, miasmatic causes of illness, and “wormberries” (an organism that developed as the fruit of a plant and later became an animal). At the same time, alchemists were trying to transmute “base metals” into gold by a mixture of chemical reactions, magic, and mystical beliefs. With the invention and perfection of the microscope, the secrets of life begin to emerge, and with them came the evolution from natural history to the science of biology we recognize today. The concurrent transmutation of alchemy and secret dye guilds into the modern science of chemistry led to the discovery of the first synthetic dyes. Most scientifically educated readers will be aware of these developments in science, but seeing them through the story of cochineal dye embeds them in a broader historical context than is usual.

The only weakness in this book is that neither Coccus cacti nor cochineal is discussed from a modern scientific perspective. In fairness to the author, this was not the intent of the book, nor is it within the scope of the cochineal story. The story of cochineal essentially ended when William Henry Perkin discovered “mauvine,” the first synthetic dye, in 1856.

As an array of synthetic colors was introduced, the dye community turned its attention away from plant and animal dyes to the new synthetic dyes. As cochineal prices fell, so did the promise of financial reward for studying the insect and the dye. Scientists interested in commercial application and financial rewards turned their interests elsewhere.

Unfortunately, most plant and animal dyes shared a similar fate, making it difficult to find good science about natural dyes. There are, however, a few treatises on dyes and dyeing that include discussion of natural dyes, including chemical structures and the plant or animal sources of natural dyes. Cochineal is among the better studied and understood of the natural dyes and is usually included in these books. A reader interested in more scientific details about the dyes should consult books of this type.

I highly recommend A Perfect Red for anyone with an interest in natural dyes and/or the history of science. This book would be appropriate as assigned reading for a liberal arts and sciences course on the history of science or for an interdisciplinary course that includes the science of natural dyes. In short, it’s interesting, well integrated, and “a good read.”

Jeanne M. Buccigross
Professor of Chemistry
College of Mount St. Joseph
Cincinnati, OH 45233-1670
Jeanne_Buccigross@mail.msj.edu
American Entomologist
Vol. 52, No.1, Spring 2006