From the Stone Age to the Stoned Age

by Antonio Escohotado, Kenneth A. Symington (Translator)

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author of The Unfolding Self and Green Psychology: 'A fascinating and informative history of humankind's checkered and often ambivalent relationship with psychoactive plants and drugs. From the role of the opium poppy in ancient Mesopotamia and the ergot-based mystery cult of Eleusis, through the opium wars in China and the persecution of medieval herbalist witches, up to the 'psychedelic rebellion' of the sixties and the insanities of the current 'war on drugs,' Eschohotado covers an enormous subject with scholarly acumen and brings the light of reason to bear on topics often shrouded in bigotry, ignorance, and cupidity. Highly recommended!'

A reader: 'This wonderful new volume is a very readable and informative condensation of and expansion on Escohotado own previous publication, the lengthy three-volume 'Historia General de las Drogas'. Here, in a text finely balanced with history and science, he traces humanity's affair with drugs and intoxicants beginning with the third millenium B.C., and leading up to the modern hi-tech psycheledics. He traces some of the most popular drugs like caffeine and hemp back to their surprisingly early origins. Taking into account the involvement of drugs in early religious festivities, he offers an analysis how they've made an easy move from there to a more secular, pleasure-seeking culture, accompanied by the parallel villification of drugs by religion, the institution that played a leading role in their introduction to society. This concise book will make readers aware of the extent of the spread of drugs through history, and of the hopelessness of all attempts to make them disappear from future history as well.'

Paperback - 160 pages