A provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mindUntil the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to ...

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...

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 global history of intoxication, exploring the international spectrum of drug use in cultures across the world, from prehistory to the present day.Every society is a high society. Every day, people drink coffee on European terraces, chew betel nut in Indonesian markets, take coca leaf on Andean mountainsides and smoke tobacco in every nation on earth. Mike Jays global history of intoxication looks at the earliest archaeological evidence of drug use, the botanicals...

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...

Is mental illness or madness at root an illness of the body, a disease of the mind, or a sickness of the soul? Should those who suffer from it be secluded from society or integrated more fully into it? This Way Madness Lies explores the meaning of mental illness through the successive incarnations of the institution that defined it: the madhouse, designed to segregate its inmates from society; the lunatic asylum, which intended to restore the reason of sufferers by humane treatment; and th...

Explores the use of mind-altering substances from alcohol to cocaine worldwide throughout history. Beautifully illustrated with rarely seen material, this striking, rigorously researched book puts its controversial subject into the widest possible context. It paints vivid portraits of the roles that drugs play as medicines, sacraments, status symbols and trade goods from classical times through the mind-bending self-experiments of early scientists to the present 'war on drugs', and reveals...

'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...

Zoey fell into a world she knew nothing about and was embarrassed to talk about. No matter who was out there she could feel the claws of something gripping around her and slowly closing around her kneck

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...

"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

The world has ended and the devil is riding high into town. Join him on his journey to the west