In 1720, a new drink emerged as the overwhelming drug of choice among London`s working poor. Cheap, potent, and available on virtually any street corner, gin was the original urban drug. It numbed thousands to the cold, hunger, fatigue, and filth that were the lot of the underclass. Gin also started an epidemic--known as the gin craze--which swept through English society from low to high, turning neighbor against neighbor, husband against wife, citizen against society. All the great voices of the day weighed in on gin, known to the happy many as Mother Gin or Madam Geneva, and to the unfortunate few as the ladies` delight or cuckold`s comfort. Samuel Johnson detested the stuff. William Hogarth spoke of the idleness, poverty, misery, and distress it brought about. Henry Fielding wrote of the infant conceived in gin, along with its more general dreadful effects, which he had the Misfortune every Day to see, and to smell too. Daniel Defoe could go either way on it depending on who was stuffing his pockets at the moment. Over the thirty-year history of the gin craze, London began to change from a medieval capital to a thoroughly modern urban metropolis, with all the problems of a modern city. Parliament waged its own war on drugs with a series of gin acts designed to restrict sales and reform the morals of the lower classes. Ordinary men and women fought tooth and nail to save their friends and neighbors from laws that were generally regarded as harsh and unjust. The craze even gave rise to its own urban legends--spontaneous combustion, for one--as well as gangs, informers, and its own brand of street justice known as the rough discipline of the rabble. Jessica Warner has written a lively and accessible social history that examines the impact of Mother Gin from all perspectives--personal, political, sociological, economic, military, and sexual. She draws on hundreds of primary sources, from the anonymous to Defoe and Dr. Johnson, guiding us th