The Colour of Time - Dan Jones & Marina Amaral

The Colour of Time

Review by Andrea

Rating:10/10

Dan Jones as I'm sure you will discover at some point in my blogs is one of my favourite historians. I own most of his books but currently I'm sad to say this is the only one I've read all the way through. When this first came out I was a bit skeptical about getting it as wasn't sure what to expect, but I treated myself and for a while I'll admit it lived in my coffee table for a while. However, once I started flicking through and then actually sitting down to read it I was amazed at what I saw. I will include some photos so see how good these photos really are. 

This book for me is breathtaking, the book has 432 pages and if you take off about 20 or so of those the rest contain a photograph that was originally black and white but has now been rendered in spectacular colour. All the hard work that Marina Amaral has done to bring these photos to life is just amazing and for that reason it is definitely worth picking up.

Starting in 1850 and working all the way up to 1960, it covers all aspects of life from all over the world. Showing all sorts of people from from different eras through multiple perspectives, for example there are photographs of people suffering in the Great Depression to the last Queen of Hawaii. This book contains pictures of people and events that are world famous, from the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb to the building of The Statue of Liberty. There is also pictures of things in history that are less known or things that have less likely to be seen like the execution of Mussolini, or the leaders of far flung countries and tribes that weren't common knowledge or known about at all at the time. 

Also compiled in this book are pictures that many of us have seen before and would recognise instantly or have a working knowledge of them. For example the famous photo taken on VJ Day of the kissing couple. With images of Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Hitler and Mussolini. Another well known famous photo in this book is of Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested at Buckingham Palace in 1914. This book has multiple focal points during that specific 10 year period, with various significant events to those that were somewhat less important. It has allowed me to learn things that I never knew and allowed me to look at things I already knew in a different light. 

At the start of each decade a new chapter starts and Dan has written two pages of which is a brief overview of what happened during those years. Also included in these mini chapters is a little time-line that runs along the bottom of the page and picks out little bitesized history of some of the photos that are included in the chapter. On each picture he has then written a brief history and overview of what the picture is of. 

There are so many pictures in this that I have seen the original of on so many occasions but this is like seeing them for the first time. There is a sequal to this book which focuses more on the Wars, but I am yet to read it, but I know like this one it will be worth it.

If anyone likes visual or photographic history this book is definitely worth it. It's also good if you want to see another side to well known historical pictures and view different eras with a new perspective.