«Lucy Inglis’s fabulous book Milk of Paradise is the history of civilisation as shaped by opium . . . a triumph, epic in scale and full of humanity. Geopolitics was changed by the poppy: it influenced the development of navigation, exploration and world trade; hand-in-hand with war, it helped to create the wealthy economies, science, medicine, crime and human despair of the modern world. The poppy, she says, will always be one of the greatest global commodities for good and evil — and we will always be at war with it»

Melanie Reid, The Times

«As Lucy Inglis recounts in her sweeping new history of opium, the tension between the substance’s medicinal virtue and its dangers is ancient ... [She] untangles these contradictions with gusto ... a deeply researched and captivating book»

Economist

«Addictive ... shows again and again how counter-productive prohibition is»

Evening Standard

«A very, very wide-ranging book and it’s beautifully written. Despite the subject matter, you never feel overburdened by it. It’s always fascinating and she’s got a very good turn of phrase. She’s one of the best. If only all historians could write like Lucy Inglis.»

Paul Lay, History Books of the Year, fivebooks.com

«Magisterial»

Nature

«Inglis has graced her pages with tales and medical snippets to provide enough information to feed a small library. This must be opium’s definitive history.»

Julie Peakman, History Today

«A sweeping international history of opium … absorbing.»

Radio Times

«Lucy Inglis has done a wonderful job bringing together a wide range of sources to tell the history of the most exciting and dangerous plants in the world. Telling the story of opium tells us much about our faults and foibles as humans – our willingness to experiment; our ability to become addicts; our pursuit of money. This book tells us more than about opium; it tells us about ourselves.»

Peter Frankopan, author of <i>The Silk Roads</i>