Rainbows: Nature and Culture (Earth) - Softcover

"Rainbows, often depicted as a simple arc of six or seven colors, are complex visual phenomena that have fascinated humans since ancient times. In this nicely illustrated guide, historian MacCannell starts off with a brief chapter describing the science behind rainbows and their many different manifestations. He moves on to deeper discussions of the history of their scientific study and of their mythic, artistic, cultural, and political significance."--Cynthia Cummings "Physics Today " "An excellent job of highlighting examples from around the world, including South America, Asia, and Africa. The author's writing style and frequent use of primary sources and pictures create an easy to follow and enjoyable narrative. . . . Extensively researched and sourced. . . . Recommended."--Choice

The rainbow is a compelling spectacle in nature - a rare bridge between subjective experience and objective reality - and no less remarkable as a cultural phenomenon. A symbol of the Left since the German Peasants' War of the 1520s, it has been adopted by movements for gay rights, the environment, multiculturalism and peace around the globe, and inspired poets, artists and writers including John Keats, Caspar David Friedrich, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The scientific `discovery' of the rainbow is a remarkable tale that takes in ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Persia and Islamic Spain. Rainbows have also been regarded as ominous or even dangerous in myth and religion, while the twentieth century saw their emergence as kitsch, from the musical film version of The Wizard of Oz to 1980s sitcoms and children's cartoons. Daniel MacCannell's enlightening and instructive guide to the rainbow's relationship with humanity is the first book of its kind. It describes what rainbows are and how they work, how we arrived at our current scientific understanding of rainbows, and how they have been portrayed in myths, the arts, politics and popular culture.