Living Color - by Nina G Jablonski (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Living Color is the first book to investigate the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body's most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Nina G. Jablonski begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment.

Richly illustrated, this book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning-- a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history--including being a basis for the transatlantic slave trade. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, Jablonski suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.

From the Back Cover

"Among traits that differ between human populations, skin color is the most noticeable, the subject of the most comments, and the hardest to understand. In this fascinating book, Nina Jablonski negotiates this mine field and comes up with many surprises." -Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

"Nina Jablonski is a world-renowned expert on human pigmentation, and one of the leaders in the science of anthropology. In Living Color she has done a brilliant job of explaining the biological and cultural significance of our skin tones in non-technical terms. Living Color should be required reading for every high school and college student." -Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Race Bomb and The Dominant Animal

"Grounded firmly in the science of human history, this groundbreaking book brings the biological and social meanings of skin color into dialogue with one another, creating an open, rich, and essential conversation about this fact of life that differentiates us from one another but that ultimately, and profoundly, unites us." -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Faces of America and Tradition and the Black Atlantic

Review Quotes

"Clear [and] thorough, but not exhaustive or boring."-- "American Journal of Anthropology" (6/4/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"Living Color would make a fine addition to the collection of anyone interested in racial history, as it would an introductory text in any university class on the topic." -- "American Journal of Human Biology"

"Delivers an open, frank and important dialogue on the causes and effects of pigmentation on our biological and social lives."-- "The Root"

"Her fresh approach to the skin color/race conundrum is not only provocative, but persuasive and exceptionally accessible whether she's writing about the science of skin color or Kant ('one of the most influential racists of all time')."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Jablonski has crafted a lucid and precisely written book indeed. You can feel her weighing each word before setting it down."-- "Maclean's"

"What is most impressive . . . is how easily and simply it transitions from very biologically based data in the first section to more social and historical data in the second section."-- "PaleoAnthropology"

"Accessible to general readers. . . . The book fascinates! Highly recommended."-- "CHOICE"

About the Author

Nina G. Jablonski is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Skin: A Natural History, (UC Press), and was named one of the first Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellows for her efforts to improve the public understanding of skin color.