In this book, Stuart Walton takes on Nietzsche's challenge in "The Gay Science": "Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica?" From Greek and Roman antiquity, through the Middle Ages, the English Restoration, to the present, Walton guides the reader through the Western history of intoxication and examines its implications for society, culture, religion and the corporeal individual. This is an account of how and why human beings in all ages have had recourse to altered states of consciousness (whether through drugs or alcohol) as a primary requisite of daily life.
- ISBN10 0241140382
- ISBN13 9780241140383
- Publish Date 7 June 2001
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 October 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Hamish Hamilton Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 320
- Language English