Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance [Book]

Of all the things humans rely on plants for--sustenance, beauty, fragrance, flavor, fiber--surely the most curious is our use of them is to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs--opium, caffeine, and mescaline--and explores the cultures that have grown up around these drugs.