High Society

New in paperback, Mike Jay’s global history of intoxication looks at the earliest archaeological evidence of drug use, the botanicals of the classical world, the mind-bending self-experiments of early scientists and today's ‘war on drugs’. 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. This striking and lyrical book, beautifully illustrated with rarely seen paintings, photographs and engravings from the Wellcome Collection, explores the international spectrum of drug use in cultures throughout the modern world: medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols and coveted trade goods. ‘Fascinating and highly recommended’ – Psychedelic Press ‘Straightforward and engaging storytelling and cool headed analysis of use of, and attitudes towards, mind-altering drugs … deserves high praise for rendering a complex, controversial topic with clarity and elegance. It’s also good looking … quite marvellous’ – British Medical Journal