A provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mindA New Yorker Best of the Week Pick**“Jay is a leading expert on the history of Western drug use, and Psychonauts is the latest in a series of excellent studies in which he has investigated the roots of a kind of psychoactive exploration that we tend to associate with the ninetee...

400 years ago this November the most ambitious and extraordinary plot ever conceived in this country came close to success: the attempt by Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators to destroy in a single, annihilating blast the entire British ruling class and royal family.This book draws on the expertise of different writers to bring to life the immense implications of the Plot and the strange way they have echoed down to us over four centuries in what remains the quintessential Engli...

This is the remarkable story of James Lee who, starting in 1895, spent 20 years pursuing all the pleasures and dangers that the Far East had to offer. A twilight world of ports, red light districts,drug dens and secret chambers of vice from Aden to Kyoto.

A compelling and evocatively illustrated exploration of the evolution of the asylum, and its role in society over the course of four centuriesThis Way Madness Lies is a thought-provoking exploration of the history of madness and its treatment as seen through the lens of its proverbial home: Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, popularly known as Bedlam. The book charts the evolution of the asylum through four incarnations: the eighteenth-century madhouse, the n...

A gripping true tale of madness, technology, politics, and paranoia in Georgian England.Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews’s case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and wa...

An illustrated cultural history of drug use from its roots in animal intoxication to its future in designer neurochemicals• Featuring artwork from the upcoming High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London, one of the world’s greatest medical history collections• Explores the roles drugs play in different cultures as medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols, and coveted trade goods• Reveals how drugs drove the global trade and cultural exchange...

This is the true story of Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, the character in the fifth series of the BBC's popular television drama Poldark.Colonel Despard was the last person to be sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering in Britain - for high treason, an alleged plot to kill the king. His execution on 21st February 1803 was witnessed by twenty thousand hushed onlookers. Their silence was ominous, for few believed he was guilty. His death would tear apar...

"Intelligent, witty, cogent and a bit pissed off, Emperors of Dreams is one of the best books on drugs that I have come across, and should be mandatory reading for anyone concerned with drug legislation." Julian Keeling in the New Statesman

A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernityMescaline became a popular sensation in the mid-twentieth century through Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, after which the word “psychedelic” was coined to describe it. Its story, however, extends deep into prehistory: the earliest Andean cultures depicted mescaline-containing cacti in their temples.Mescaline w...

'It is a fascinating book... Jay is excellent is on the emergence of medical science as a social force.' W.N.Herbert in Scotland on Sunday 'As well as exploding the fantasy that a society without drugs used to exist, Jay clarifies the question of why so many of them were outlawed...in the process, he tells a series of fascinating stories about the first individuals to describe their effects, and how their use spread.' Peter Carty in Time Out 'Intelligent, witty, cogent and a bit pissed off...

Intriguing Asian thriller with close interaction between principle characters, Jason and Phoebe. Being caught up in a cunning extradition of deceipt and kidnap amongst Triad and ex-Triad members.

BRISTOL ROVERS: THE OFFICIAL HISTORY is an up-to-date and definitive historical record of Bristol Rovers Football Club, relating the story of the club from its origins in 1883, through the glory years and tougher times, to where it is today. Emphasis is placed on why the club started, who the figureheads of the club were at various points in its long history, how two World Wars were survived and how the club lived through exile in Bath to return to its home patch. No football club simply s...