Redis is a brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair throughout the ages. This book breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, exploring multiple disciplines including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art. With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey, herself a redhead, begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora to its emergence under Northern skies. She goes on to explore red hair in the ancient world, the prejudice manifested against red hair across medieval Europe, and red hair during the Renaissance as both an indicator of Jewishness during the Inquisition and the height of fashion in Protestant England under the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The book also covers the modern age of art and literature, the first positive symbols of red hair in children’s characters, modern medicine and science, and the genetic and chemical decoding of red hair. Finally, it addresses red hair in contemporary culture, from advertising and exploitation to “gingerism” and the new movement against bullying.