Roundtable

Opinions and analysis from Lapham’s Quarterly writers and editors.

March 19, 2013

The Addicted Life of Thomas De Quincey

By Colin Dickey

How Thomas De Quincey turned his debilitating addiction to opium into a revival of the English essay.

March 14, 2013

A Pilgrim’s Drunken Progress

By A.N. Devers

Starting on the Mayflower, the pilgrims had a complicated relationship with alcohol—one modern history tends to ignore.

February 20, 2013

Blowing Your Mind

By Miles Klee

Total freak-out or total bliss? For centuries, LSD and its derivatives have been dreamland for the initiated, and a nightmare for those caught unawares.

February 13, 2013

Harriet Jacobs at 200

By Scott Korb

Remembering an extraordinary life.

February 11, 2013

Good ’Til the Last Drop?

By Sarah Laskow

In 1911 Coca-Cola was put on trial by the U.S. government, not because it contained cocaine, but because of a far more addictive substance: caffeine.

January 28, 2013

The Botanical Origins of a Medieval Madness

By Laurent Merceron

Before LSD, medieval life was plagued with the “bad trip” of ergot poisoning, a fungus that caused men and women to hallucinate the devil and dance themselves to death.

December 24, 2012

The Eggnog Riot

By Michelle Legro

In 1826, an out-of-control dorm party at West Point determined the future course of our nation’s military—all because its participants were hopped up on the nog.

December 20, 2012

They Saw the Signs

By Angela Serratore

If interpretations of the Mayan calendar crying "apocalypse!" are to be believed, the end of the world is nigh. Take comfort, though, in four doomsday prophecies that came and went with a whimper.

December 15, 2012