The Colour of Time: A New History of the World, 1850-1960

This is a beautiful and fascinating book, published in the UK as “The Colour of Time” and in the U.S. as “The Color of Time” (October 2, 2018). The well-written and informative text is by Dan Jones, author of “The Plantagenets,” “The War of the Roses” and “The Templars.” Each decade is introduced by a single photograph, a “Zeitgeist” overview of the period, and a timeline that is loosely tied to the photographs that follow.

The narrative explains each photograph and the historical context from which it is taken. The photographs drive the story, and in this sense the book reminds me of Neil MacGregor’s magnificent “A History of the World in 100 Objects.” Some of the photos are familiar and iconic (you’ve seen them in black and white), others a bit more obscure—all are beautifully rendered by Marina Amaral.

I learned a great deal from this beautiful book and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I’ve also picked up two other news books featuring colorized photographs, “History as They Saw It”, by Wolfgang Wild and Jordan Lloyd, and “Retrographic” by Michael Carroll. Some of the photos are the same, and it will be interesting to see how different artists have interpreted how the colors should appear (there’s inevitably a bit or artistic license involved).

On a related topic, be on the look out for Peter Jackson’s new documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old,” in which he colorizes World War I footage, uses computer technology to smooth out the jerkiness of the old films, and adds sound and words (based on forensic lip reading of the old films) to create a documentary of WWI “as they saw it.”

This book is a masterpiece. Page after page of beautifully colorized photographs, with wonderful quotes by leading figures in history as well as text that explains in more detail the history of the time period around each photo. The authors chose a time period encompassing when photography began to be used regularly to document history, until about when black and white photography was probably in the verge of being replaced by color photos. As they explain in the preface, it's impossible to take nearly 100 years of history and cover it exhaustively. They apparently started with nearly 10,000 photos! Just like any other history book, the authors chose what they wanted to emphasize. The history goes from country to country, all over the globe, covering well known as well as lesser known events and figures. The colorized photos are remarkable in making history come alive in a new way. Marina Amaral is a remarkable artist, who has also made a name for herself in the exhibit currently at the Holocaust Museum in Poland called "Faces of Auschwitz". This book is a must-have for your library. And just as an aside, after leafing through the hundreds of pages (photos on EVERY page), I was amazed at the price being so reasonable.

Intriguing!

Of course this isn’t a definitive history book, rather snapshots of what was happening in the world from 1850 to 1960.

The very first pic is of JFK and Jackie O.

Understated, real, concise...it’s almost like you have your own time machine. You realize history more in depth given the color enhanced photographs.

This book in the very least is at least a great coffee table reader.

An absolutely gorgeous book. Purchased as a gift, and it took my breath away when it arrived. Now everyone on my list is getting a copy for Christmas, including "my husband" (let's be honest it's for me). It's difficult to explain the emotional depth the color adds to these photos, but it's a masterpiece and I can't recommend this book more highly. Note - I actually prefer this UK cover to the American version, which is different and has a photo on it. To me, this catches the eye better.

This books is very well done and interesting. I bought it as a coffee table book. I took a star off bc I have boys (ages 8 and 9) who don’t need to thumb through a book with pictures of dead bodies. There’s one pic of a slain body with a decapitated head. I get it - it’s history..... but it’s just not what I want on my coffee table.

The book came defective, pages are in the wrong order, there’s a loose segment of pages and there’s a big part that is missing.

This book provides a fascinating look at events in history that are brought to life through Marina Amaral’s colorizing of photographs. There are ~200 historical photographs which have been colorized and included in the book. It far exceeded my expectations, the most remarkable thing was seeing my kids gather around studying the photographs and reading the commentary about events that they’d largely ignored until now. This book made the events more real and provided a connection to history that just didn’t happen until we saw the pictures in color. I would love to see a follow up book that provides a side-by-side of the black & white and newly colorized photographs.

Beautiful. That's the only word that comes to mind when I page through this. Seeing images from the 1860s in full, vibrant color is amazing. And the colorization is so well done that you'd think Ms. Amaral has a time machine. Highly, HIGHLY recommended.

This book really draws you in - the colorization is amazing and it really makes history come alive. I was a bit surprised at the size and format of the book....was expecting more of a "coffee-table" size and presentation. It's smaller and thicker than I expected. But it's amazing nonetheless.

Absolutely gorgeous book!

I've been following Marina Amaral's work for a long time now and had this book on preorder! After receiving it and reading through the first series of pages shows it's an absolutely stunning book.

The beautiful full page photographs and the accompanying text that details the subject and the time they lived in really bring you back in time. There's nothing like it. You'll lose yourself in this book!