High Society by Mike Jay
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
'Fascinating and highly recommended' - Psychedelic News
'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 eleganceIt’s also good looking … quite marvellous' - British Medical Journal
'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 eleganceIt’s also good looking … quite marvellous' - British Medical Journal
Mike Jay has written widely on the cultural history of science, medicine and the mind. His books include The Influencing Machine, The Story of James Tilly Matthews and his Confinement in Eighteenth-century Bedlam and High Society: Mind-altering Drugs in History and Culture. He reviews regularly for The London Review of Books and The Wall Street Journal. This Way Madness Lies was written in conjunction with the exhibition 'Bedlam: the asylum and beyond', which he co-curated for the Wellcome Collection in London. He is a research affiliate of the Health Humanities Centre at University College London and a trustee of the Bethlem Art and History Collection.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780500289105 |
| ISBN 10 | 0500289107 |
| Title | High Society |
| Author | Mike Jay |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Thames & Hudson Ltd |
| Year published | 2012-03-05 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |