Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World

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 signific...