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Rearview Mirror Chronicles
Keith Hockton, FRAS, is a writer, publisher, and award-winning podcaster based in Penang, Malaysia, with a deep passion for uncovering the stories that shaped our world. As the Southeast Asia Editor for International Living magazine, Keith explores the intersections of history, culture, and modern life across the region.
A dynamic lecturer and storyteller, he speaks internationally on Southeast Asian politics, economics, and history—bringing the past to life with clarity, wit, and insight. Keith is also a proud Fellow of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and is on a mission to make history not only accessible but genuinely entertaining for everyone.
His published books include:
• Atlas of Australian Dive Sites - Travellers Edition (Harper Collins Australia, 2003).
• Penang - An inside guide to its historic homes, buildings, monuments and parks (MPH Publishing, 2012; 2nd Edition 2014; 3rd Edition 2017).
• Festivals of Malaysia (Trafalgar Publishing, 2015).
• The Habitat Penang Hill: A pocket history (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Alana and the Secret Life of Trees at Night (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Penang Then & Now: A Century of Change in Pictures (Entrepot Publishing, 2019; 2nd Edition 2021
• Bersama Lima - Five Together (Entrepot Publishing, 2022)
www.entrepotpublishing.com
Rearview Mirror Chronicles
The Colour That Haunted History
In the 1660s, Isaac Newton sat alone in the dark—and drove a needle behind his eye. Not out of madness, but to understand light.
Centuries earlier, Homer described the sea not as blue, but wine-dark. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, the colour blue is never mentioned. Not once.
This absence haunted William Gladstone. Scholar. Statesman. Obsessive. He scoured ancient texts, The Bible. The Vedas. The Koran. Still no blue. Only silence. Except in Egypt, where the dead were painted in lapis and gods crossed sapphire skies. Why them, and no one else?
Because colour isn’t in the world. It’s in the mind. Filtered through flesh. Warped by biology. Shaped by time. You see three cones. A dog sees two. A mantis shrimp sees sixteen. Who sees reality?
This isn’t just about colour. It’s about perception. Control. Evolution. This is the story of a colour that didn’t exist—until we taught ourselves to see it.
And what else might be out there, hidden in plain sight?
For books written and published by Keith Hocton