The book on drugs that I've wanted. Time to go snort pounds of Chinese research chems in order to come up with novel philosophical theories and writing styles. Rec'd for fans of Foucault and Bachelard. ( )

As per the title, Plant is writing about drugs, and about how others have written about them and/or on them. It's a big maze in which she sometimes gets lost -- partly because the subject and the author's verbal skill are both temptations toward an excess of style -- but the central image of opium & co. as a dragon romping through the world and shaping our history is hard to resist. The obligatory section on Coleridge and De Quincey goes beyond psychological and literary analysis, to the question of whether the Industrial Revolution and the British empire could have happened that way if everyone weren't on tons of opiates. Plant also makes William Burroughs more accessible and interesting than others do, which has the side effect of making nearly every later writer she discusses seem much less interesting. ( )