Poisons: The Complete History. From Arsenic to Novichok

"All is poison, and nothing is without poisonousness; it is only the dose that makes a poison undetectable," — claimed the famous naturalist and physician of the Renaissance, Paracelsus. The annals of humanity are marked by fateful pages of cruel poisonings. The ancient world, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, modernity… At all times, toxic substances became weapons of cowards and scoundrels, fanatics and maniacs, executioners and fate-deciders. All of this is reflected in a unique book — the first complete history of poisons. Its heroes are Cleopatra and Nero, Socrates and Hannibal, Gorky and Zola, Stalin and Peter I… And the stage of this endless, cruel, and captivating spectacle is the whole world.