High Society

Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture

Mike Jay

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Paperback

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English

Thames & Hudson Ltd
01 February 2012

Society & Social Sciences; Abnormal psychology; History of medicine; Addiction & therapy

High Society explores the spectrum of mind-altering substances across the globe and throughout history. Beautifully illustrated with rarely seen material, this striking and rigorously researched book puts its controversial subject into the widest possible context.

Every society is a high society. Every day, people drink coffee on European terraces and kava in Pacific villages, sniff cocaine in American suburbs and petrol in Aborigine slums, chew betel nut in Indonesian markets and coca leaf on Andean mountainsides, swallow ecstasy tablets in the clubs of Amsterdam and opium pills in the deserts of Rajasthan, and smoke ya'aba in Thai nightclubs, and tobacco in every nation on earth.

Cultural historian Mike Jay paints vivid portraits of the roles that drugs play as medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols and trade goods. He traces the understanding of intoxicants from the classical world through the mind-bending self-experiments of early scientists to the present 'war on drugs', and reveals how the international trade in substances such as tobacco, tea and opium shaped the modern world.

By: Mike Jay
Imprint: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New ed.
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 170mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 650g
ISBN: 9780500289105
ISBN 10: 0500289107
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 01 February 2012
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture

'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 elegance. It’s also good looking … quite marvellous' - British Medical Journal