Emperor of Dreams: Drugs in the 19th century(Dedalus Concept Books)

The text of Emperors of Dreams has been revised, updated and with new material added, it paints a fresh and startling picture both of today's illicit drugs and of the nineteenth century in general. Emperors of Dreams is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of drugs and drugs policy. AUTHOR: Mike Jay is the author of Blue Tide: The Search for Soma (1999), an investigation into the use of sacred plant drugs in Indo-European prehistory. He is also the editor of Artificial Paradises (1999), an illustrated anthology of drug literature, and the co-editor of 1900 (1999), a collection of fin-de-siècle writings on evolution, decadence, atheism, the unconscious, feminism, sexology and futurism. He has written on the social history of drugs for various publications including The Guardian, The Independent, Arena, Fortean Times and the International Journal of Drug Policy.

About the Author :
Mike Jay is the author of Blue Tide: The Search for Soma (1999), an investigation into the use of sacred plant drugs in Indo-European prehistory. He is also the editor of Artificial Paradises (1999), an illustrated anthology of drug literature, and the co-editor of 1900 (1999), a collection of fin-de-siècle writings on evolution, decadence, atheism, the unconscious, feminism, sexology and futurism. He has written on the social history of drugs for various publications including The Guardian, The Independent, Arena, Fortean Times and the International Journal of Drug Policy.

Review :
An excellent book... it states with precision as well as poetry the nature of the drug experience.
-Pick of the Week by Nicholas Lezard in The Guardian 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 I commend to hon.Members 'Emperors of Dreams', which is an excellent book on drug use in the past century.
-Paul Flynn MP in The House of Commons as reported in Hansard for 2 February 2001 Intelligent, witty, cogent and a bit pissed off, Emperors of Dreams is one of the best books on drugs I have come across, and should be mandatory reading for anyone concerned with drug legalization.
-Julian Keeling in The New Statesman and Society 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 Mike Jay's sensible yet stylish book is the first attempt to survey the nineteenth-century drug scene at large...one of the pleasures of Jay's approach lies in showing that drugs did not have the histories we might, from a present-day perspective, expect....a fine book.
-Dr Roy Porter in The Times Higher Education Supplement