Emperors of Dreams

'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, 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 legalisation.' Julian Keeling in The New Statesman 'The changing status of the coca leaf is one of the many stories told by Mike Jay in his engaging survey of drug use in the 19th century.... Fear of pleasure, as Jay shows in this splendid book, is perhaps the most powerful motive in the hysterical anti-drug rhetoric that has created the mess we are in today.' Joan Smith in The Independent on Sunday 'Meticulously researched, compulsively readable and unfailingly fascinating...more than just an inebriating travelogue of days gone by, Jay's book is important in its even-handed, dispassionate and intelligent discussion of such incendiary topics as decriminalisation and legalisation. His closing chapter on temperance and prohibition is perhaps the most level-headed prose ever written on the subject.' Gary Lachman in The Fortean Times '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 'Mike Jay has built a necessary bridge between scholarship and the illicit enthusiasm of drug culture...He does not disdain conventional drug history, but has absorbed it into a work that is literary in the broadest sense - rich in sociology and politics as well as in poetry and letters...Jay relishes his storytelling, and keeps a steady hand on his source material. Emperors of Dreams is a book for aficionados, who savour not only good writing but also the recollection, in tranquillity, of altered states.' Marek Kohn in The Independent