“Everything is poison, and nothing is free from its taint; it is only the dose that makes poison unnoticeable,” the famous naturalist and physician of the Renaissance Paracelsus claimed. The chronicle of humanity includes deadly pages of cruel poisoning. In the ancient world, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, modern times— in any era, poisonous substances became weapons for cowards and villains, fanatics and maniacs, executioners and makers of fate. All of this is reflected in a unique book—the first complete history of poisons. Its heroes include Cleopatra and Nero, Socrates and Hannibal, Gorky and Zola, Stalin and Peter I… And the stage of this endless, cruel, captivating spectacle is—nothing less than the whole world.