Bøker av Mike Jay

A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernity

The stranger-than-fiction story of the Enlightenment visionaries who discovered the unexpected effects of inhaling nitrous oxide   At the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, England, founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, dramatic experiments with gases precipitated not only a revolution in scientific medicine but also in the history of ideas. Guided by the energy of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes, the institution was both laboratory and hospital—the first example of a modern medical research institution. But when its members discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, their experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness with far-reaching and unforeseen effects.   This riveting book is the first to tell the story of Dr. Beddoes and the brilliant circle who surrounded him: Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, who supported his ideas; James Watt, who designed and built his laboratory; Thomas Wedgwood, who funded it; and the dazzling young chemistry assistant, Humphry Davy, who identified nitrous oxide and tested it on himself, with spectacular results. Medical historian Mike Jay charts the chaotic rise and fall of the institution in this fast-paced account, and reveals its crucial influence—on modern drug culture, attitudes toward objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anesthetic surgery, and the birth of the Romantic movement.

Stranger Than Fiction brings together, for the first time, Mike Jay's distinctive and immensely readable forays into the twilight zones of history, culture and the human mind. Beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated, Stranger Than Fiction is a unique compendium of forgotten histories, untold stories and unexplored worlds.

The remarkable life of Colonel Edward Despard, comrade-in-arms of Nelson and a man who championed the rights of freed slaves, but who was executed in Britain for high treason in 1803.

Explores the meaning of mental illness through the successive incarnations of the institution that defined it: the madhouse, designed to segregate its inmates from society; the lunatic asylum, which intended to restore the reason of sufferers by humane treatment; and the mental hospital, which reduced their conditions to diseases of the brain.

In the 1989/90 season, Bristol Rovers clinched promotion to the old `Second Division', thanks largely to the tremendous team spirit of a side exiled in Bath, away from its traditional Bristol home.