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Daily Telegraph

Kathryn Hughes

“Jessica Warner is not the first to write about the gin craze, but her book is easily the best on the subject. Unlike Patrick Dillon’s soggy The Much-Lamented Death of Madame Geneva, which came out last year, Warner’s book is acutely alive to the difficulty of reading the past through the concerns of the present.  Thus while she feels impelled to make parallels between the public reaction to the gin craze and our own current, impotent flap about drug use, she anchors her arguments in precise, scholarly data and is always ready to point to the places where the analogies do not stand up.  Added to this, she writes like an angel, which makes her as cheerily compelling as a nice G&T at the end of a long, hard day.”

Guardian

Frances Wilson

“Craze is not only about the 18th century's attempt to control street drugs. Much of what Warner says is directly or indirectly pertinent to similar efforts made by contemporary governments. Arguing with great skill and wit that drug abuse is a symptom and not the cause of social problems, she is persuasive and compelling to a surprising degree. Craze stirs us into action rather than allowing us to feel, as do many historical accounts or several glasses of gin, comfortably distanced from the grim reality of the situation.”

Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“A tart, acute inquiry into the mania for gin that coursed through London during the early part of the eighteenth century. Warner . . . gives her savvy investigation a second, deeper dimension as a parable about drugs: why some take them and others worry when they do . . . The stink of various self-serving moral agendas (a couple of modern examples are nimbly exploited by Warner) get a proper and gratifying airing here. . . . Social history at its gimlet-eyed best.”

Scotsman

“A vivid narrative with some shrewd analysis, often trenchantly expressed, Craze is damning in its exposure of inconsistencies and hypocrisies, both Augustan and modern.”

Nottingham Evening Post

“This is a serious subject written with great flair and humour . . . This book is a must for anyone with an interest in the history of this period or a fascination with the history of mind altering substances.”

Bloomsbury Review

“. . . a rich and knowledgeable perspective, often presenting remarkable parallels with government and social interactions in the drug culture we have today.”

Albion

Craze “makes a wonderful addition not only to alcohol studies, but also to the study of consumption . . . The book reveals a complex story that is deeply grounded in contemporary historical studies, but this does not make the book inaccessible to the general reader. The book has a wide appeal to both the historian and anyone trying to understand the drug phenomena that cycles through human history.”

Journal of Social History

“This expertly argued book has compelling insights to offer . . .”

Publishers Weekly

“[An] intriguing slice of social history . . . This informative and accessible popular history should appeal to those with a taste for 18th-century English history as well as those interested in histories of mind-altering substances. . .”

Oregonian

Paul Collins

“It is unwise to deprive Brits of their gin. But in the first half of the 18th century, as author Jessica Warner documents through newspapers and court records of the time, that is just what their government attempted to do. Her wonderfully written book . . . is a provocative parable for our own time . . . Warner . . . has written one of this year's most entertaining and timely books; it should be required reading for politicians and law enforcement officials.”

Historian

Craze “succeeds as social history for a broad audience . . . the book is a model of clear and lively writing and colorful anecdotes . . . an imaginative, controversial experiment in using history to understand why people drink and the emotional response of others to drinking.”

Globe and Mail

[Craze is] “an intoxicating concoction . . . Jessica Warner . . . is the sort of writer every university hack should want to be: learned, fluent, funny, scabrous and hardly ever didactic. She tells you a lot of stuff you knew little or nothing about before and makes it entirely relevant to the current situation. In this case, the war on gin as a social evil in 18th-century England is equated to the ongoing war on drugs. In doing so, Warner shines a bright light on a murky corner of history. She is a master of the telling detail, both in laying out the scope of the epidemic and in pointing out the absurdities of those who sought to curtail it. Warner has a particular genius for statistics and anecdotes that leave your jaw hanging.”

Austin-American Statesman

“Entertainingly told . . . Warner writes with great flair, incorporating hundreds of quotes from letters, poems, newspaper stories, laws and police reports from the period . . . The book is organized into three acts, like an 18th-century play, complete with a list of characters and appropriate subtitles (‘In Which Virtue Triumphs Over Prudence’). Warner is especially good at bringing to light the role of women in the gin craze. . . .”

Good Book Guide

“Her lively style not only captures the politics of the time, but also presents the argument in a remarkably clear and concise manner.”

Washington Post

Jonathan Yardley

“Gin was the opiate of the ordinary people, who were mostly illiterate, brutish and rude; the gin laws enacted by the ruling class were intended to keep the poor in their place . . . Thus the story of the gin craze takes on larger and more interesting implications than may at first be evident . . . Warner tells it well . . . Her prose is both lively and accessible, and she keeps the narrative moving along. . . .”

Toronto Star

“Fascinating and revealing . . . Craze is a compact and tart summary of the gutter-dwelling characters and events that brought [gin] to the fetid alleys of London, Bristol and Norwich. . . . Warner may give the colourless spirit centre stage in Craze, but not only does she also come away with a colourful social history of urban 18th century England, but a lucid and devastating critique of the rusted moral chassis of the White House's failed war on drugs--frighteningly similar to the ill-conceived and equally vain attempts to curb the use of Mother Gin four centuries earlier . . . . Thoughtful social history . . .”

Bookselling this Week

“Sharp-eyed readers will quickly delight, realizing that they are in hands of an author willing to take a poke at sacred cows . . . Warner is a historian with an eye and an ear for a good story, and the skills to tell it.”

Health Service Journal

“. . . Warner brings a fresh perspective and she has an easy writing style . . .”

Catholic Herald

“This is a colourful social history approached from the perspective of a colouless liquid . . . It’s a deft approach . . .”

Evening Standard

“Warner has actually done time among court records and sessions papers, turning up strange, violent anecdotes of the influence of gin which are the best parts of her book.”

Foreword Magazine

“What lifts the narrative out of substantive history into enthralling social narrative is Warner's crystal clear structure and her perceptive vignettes of the players -- politicians, moralizers, tavern keepers, informers, police constables, magistrates, and others. . . . This well illustrated, well referenced book will reward readers and, importantly, teach politicians a valuable how-not-to lesson.”

Seattle Times

“Warner evokes a vivid picture of 18th-century London, complete with its public hangings and slums that seemed to overflow with gin. She presents the fascinating cases of countless ordinary individuals who were affected by the craze, underscoring the power of the masses as each of the unpopular gin acts unraveled due to widespread disregard, if not outright protest.”

Lev Raphael’s Favorites, from the Tod Mundt Show, Michigan Radio

“In this well-argued and entertaining study, the author explores the many factors that led to cheap gin suddenly being available especially in London; its rising use; the lawlessness it caused and was perceived to cause; and governmental attempts to control its growing consumption. A fascinating blend of social, economic and political history with some obvious lessons for contemporary America.”

London Times

“. . . a valuable piece of social history.”

New Statesman

“Professor Warner’s archival research is impeccable.”

Forbes Magazine

“[An] affecting and at times amusing history of an addiction epidemic from an earlier age.”

Library Journal

“. . . Insightful . . . An interesting and educational read, this book is recommended for all public libraries.”

Baltimore Sun

“. . . Provocative . . . Warner has done impressive research. . . . [Craze] is a crisp, detailed review of the history of the place and period.”

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