nthposition online magazine

Mike Jay

Jay's books include The Unfortunate Colonel Despard, The Air Loom Gang, Emperors Of Dreams: Drugs In The Nineteenth Century and Blue Tide: Search For Soma. He edited Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures. His next book, The Atmosphere of Heaven, is forthcoming from Yale in 2009.

The globalisation of addiction

[ bookreviews ]

"addiction is rampant not merely among a subculture of problem drug users but across society at large"

Drugs and the world

[ bookreviews ]

"Since it began in earnest in the 1970s, the illicit drugs market has become, after oil and arms, the largest commodity trade on the planet."

"Darkness over all"

[ people - october 08 ]

John Robison and the birth of the Illuminati conspiracy.

For lust of knowing

[ bookreviews ]

Robert Irwin's counterblast to Edward Said's Orientalism is also an indictment of the current standards in academe.

Witch craze

[ bookreviews ]

Bringing realpolitik into Baroque witchcraft...

Edward and Catherine Despard

[ people - july 04 ]

"Whatever her origins it is clear that, in London, Catherine demonstrated that there was a great deal more to her than the colour of her skin."

The Rites of Roerich

[ strangeness | people - march 04 ]

"A holiday. Let it be the one with which the victory of the springtime sun was always celebrated. When swift dances were danced, when all wished to please. The people rejoyced. Among them, art was born..."

The Air Loom Gang: James Tilly Matthews and his visionary madness

[ strangeness - july 03 ]

"For everyone who has since had messages beamed at them through fillings, mysterious implants or TV sets, or via hi-tech surveillance, MI5, Masonic lodges or UFOs, James Tilly Matthews is Patient Zero."

Lusus serius: The Rosicrucian manifestos and the 'serious joke'

[ strangeness - april 02 ]

Time to get very serious about the Invisible Brotherhood.

The last cargo cult

[ places - april 02 ]

Under the volcano in the South Pacific.