Rainbows: nature and culture

The rainbow is a compelling spectacle in nature - a rare, evanescent, and beautiful 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 has inspired poets, artists, and writers including John Keats, Caspar David Friedrich, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Daniel MacCannell offers an enlightening and instructive guide to the rainbow's multicolored relationship with humanity.