Robert Evans

“See, I’m a nerd. So when I realize I like something (in this case “general debauchery”), my natural impulse is to start reading as much about it as I can. That’s how I learned that one of the first great victories for women’s rights in history was thanks to a prostitute who became an empress. It’s also how I learned that modern genetic science was made possible by two different scientists’ acid trips. And as I learned more about the wonderful ways vice has changed human history, I read about the long-extinct ways people used to enjoy their vices. Frankly, I was inspired. I experimented with ancient Native American nose pipes. I ate balls of coffee and butter in the style of the ancient Ethiopians. I went without eating for four days and drank wine mixed with barley and cheese to see if it would make me trip like a Greek philosopher. I hunted after a mythical hallucinogenic drink made by drowning poisonous salamanders in booze. The book that follows is everything I’ve ever learned about the things we pretend not to like in polite company. It’s a celebration of the brave, drunken pioneers who built our globe-spanning civilization. Reading this book will arm you with more than just information; it will provide you with step-by-step guides for re-creating the intoxicating experiences of our ancestors. I hope what I’ve written here will help you appreciate the importance of vice in our shared human history and understand that, if we’re able to get higher than any people before us, it’s only because we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization