Western Europe is in a strangely neurotic condition of being smug and terrified at the same time. On the one hand, Europeans believe they have at last created an ideal social and political system in which man can live comfortably. In many ways, things have never been better on the old continent. On the other hand, there is growing anxiety that Europe is quickly falling behind in an aggressive, globalized world. Europe is at the forefront of nothing, its demographics are rapidly transforming in unsettling ways, and the ancient threat of barbarian invasion has resurfaced in a fresh manifestation. In The New Vichy Syndrome , Theodore Dalrymple traces this malaise back to the great conflicts of the last century and their devastating effects upon the European psyche. From issues of religion, class, colonialism, and nationalism, Europeans hold a "miserablist" view of their history, one that alternates between indifference and outright contempt of the past. Today's Europeans no longer believe in anything but personal economic security, an increased standard of living, shorter working hours, and long vacations in exotic locales. The result, Dalrymple asserts, is an unwillingness to preserve European achievements and the dismantling of western culture by Europeans themselves. As vapid hedonism and aggressive Islamism fill this cultural void, Europeans have no one else to blame for their plight.

Almost everything you know about heroin addiction is wrong. Not only is it wrong, but it is obviously wrong. Heroin is not highly addictive; withdrawal from it is not medically serious; addicts do not become criminals to feed their habit; addicts do not need any medical assistance to stop taking heroin; and contrary to received wisdom, heroin addiction most certainly IS a moral or spiritual problem. Based on his experience as a prison doctor and as a psychiatrist in a large general hospital in Birmingham, Dr. Dalrymple argues that addiction to heroin is not an illness at all, and that doctors only make it worse. They deceive both the addicts and themselves by pretending that they have something to offer. In this brilliant, entertaining and provocative book, Theodore Dalrymple explains how and why a literary tradition dating back to De Quincey and Coleridge, and continuing up to the deeply sociopathic William Burroughs and beyond, has misled all Western societies for generations about the nature of heroin addiction. These writers' self-dramatizing and dishonest accounts of their own addiction have been accepted uncritically, and have been more influential by far in forming public attitudes than the whole of pharmacological science. As a result, a self-serving, self-perpetuating and completely useless medical bureaucracy has been set up to deal with the problem. With scathing wit, implacable logic and savage denunciation, Dr. Dalrymple exposes the mythology surrounding heroin addiction. Moving seamlessly between literature, pharmacology, history and philosophy, he demonstrates what happens when the nature of a social problem is so thoroughly misunderstood, and when human beings are regarded as inanimate objects rather than as agents of their own destiny. His scintillating, iconoclastic little book has an importance far beyond its immediate subject matter.

In this perceptive and witty book, Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the sentimentality that is suffocating modern life. Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the under-privileged, fighting poverty, assisting the less able, and doing good generally, we are achieving quite the opposite. Drawing on his long experience as a doctor, as well as work with thousands of criminals and the mentally disturbed as a prison psychiatrist, Dalrymple shows what happens if we feel our way rather than think well.

Theodore Dalrymple's brilliant new collection of writings follows on the extraordinary success of his earlier books, Life at the Bottom and Our Culture, What's Left of It . No writer today is more adept and incisive in exploring the state of our culture and the ideas that are changing our ways of life. In Not with a Bang But a Whimper , he takes the measure of our cultural decline, with special attention to Britain-its bureaucratic muddle, oppressive welfare mentality, and aimless young-all pursued in the name of democracy and freedom. He shows how terrorism and the growing numbers of Muslim minorities have changed our public life. Also here are Mr. Dalrymple's trenchant observations on artists and ideologues, and on the treatment of criminals and the mentally disturbed, his area of medical interest.

"I try to believe that everything I have read has contributed some small ingredient to the melting pot of my mind." In On the Ivory Stages , Theodore Dalrymple continues the genre he established with These Spindrift Pages by capturing the thoughts inspired by his recent reading. These passages serve as small essays that are part literary criticism, historical analysis and philosophical musings, sometimes all at once. The breadth of writers and subjects he addresses are both cause and effect of an expansive and curious mind. Readers will benefit, as Dalrymple has, from the volume and quality of his reading and from the wisdom it inspires. Theodore Dalrymple is a retired doctor and psychiatrist who has written many books, including Life at the Bottom, Admirable Evasions and These Spindrift Pages.

When I was a young man I thought that metaphysics was the most exciting (and important) thing in the world. I wish now that I had not wasted so much time on the imponderable questions of metaphysics but had used it to more worthwhile effect. Rather than study philosophy, I should have studied insects. In the little essays that follow, I have no grand theory to prove, no single message to convey. Small things and slight occurrences have caught my attention and caused me to reflect a little. I hope only to please the reader. - Theodore Dalrymple

We have created a New Kind of Man - the Human Mutualist.... Filosofa Cicero B. Nyayaya, the first and so far only President of the African republic of Ngombia, is being hailed as a new kind of leader. By combining the traditional wisdom of Africa with the cutting-edge political science of European intellectuals (and with the help of one-party rule), his new philosophy of Human Mutualism promises finally to bring equality and justice to his people! In this book, a British visitor to a small Ngombian village documents the people's unceasing efforts to incorporate the principles of Human Mutualism into their daily lives. And if human nature sometimes gets in the way of all this progress, not to worry: Filosofa's new principles will be applied creatively . Readers will laugh at this fun and enlightening satire on Tanzania under the rule of Julius Nyerere. Theodore Dalrymple is a retired doctor and psychiatrist who has traveled extensively in Africa and who lived for three years in Tanzania. He has written many books, including Life at the Bottom , Romancing Opiates and These Spindrift Pages .