James Fox

Drawn from the private family archive, this biography recounts a family's dramatic reinvention and transformation on both sides of the Atlantic. It charts the attempts of two extraordinary women to transform themselves and to build new lives.

Cocaine and the coca plant, from which it is made, have a unique place in the history of recreational and illegal drugs. Despite governments vowing to eliminate it, cocaine has kept its status as the `champagne drug', associated in many peoples minds with a high-living, high-rolling lifestyle. It has long been the choice of emperors, kings politicians and pop stars. It was used 100 years ago by King Edward VII and his coterie at Balmoral; by Bleriot as he flew over the English Channel for the first time; and by millions of ordinary citizens in the USA - notably in the first decade of production of the most famous soft drink of them all Coca-Cola. This comprehensive book seeks to explain the cultural history of cocaine and the coca plant. White mischief journeys back many thousand of years ago to discover the drug's first use in South America -particulary among the Inca, who revered it as the `food of the gods' The author examines the rise of cocaine as a recreational drug. And he tells of the astonishing array of medics in Europe - including Sigmund Freud - who pushed it as the wonder drug of the age in the 1880s.