Title: The Pursuit of Oblivion

Author: Richard Davenport-Hines

The Pursuit of Oblivion - A Global History of Narcotics 1500-2000 draws on a dazzlingly wide range of sources to show how narcotics came to have such an impact on Western society and how each came into use as a licit medicine only later outlawed as an illicit drug. The Pursuit of Oblivion also contains strange and amusing stories revealing the intimate drug habits of Sir Christopher Wren, Dickens, Freud, Queen Victoria (to name just a few). Important to note is that the book neither condemns nor celebrates the use of narcotics. It strives to give an answer to the question why despite more and more tightening sanctions, the drug use continues to increase and discusses where the law goes from here.

ISBN 0297643754