A celebration from the fearless, drunken pioneers who built our civilization one seemingly poor decision at a time, A Brief History of Vice explores a aspect of days gone by that mainstream history books prefer to cover up. History has never been even more fun-or more intoxicating.

Guns, bacteria, and steel might have changed us from hunter-gatherers into contemporary man, but booze, sex, trash talk, and tripping constructed our civilization. Cracked editor Robert Evans brings his personal dogged about A Brief Background of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization analysis and lively insight to uncover the many and magnificent ways vice has inspired history, through the prostitute-turned-empress who obtained a major success for women’s privileges to the beer that helped create-and destroy-South America’s initial empire. And Evans goes deeper than writing about ancient debauchery; he recreates a few of history’s most exciting (and most painful) vices and contains guides so you can follow along at home.

You’ll learn how to:

• Trip like a Greek philosopher.

• Rave like your Rock Age ancestors.

• Get drunk just like a Sumerian.

• Smoke a nose tube such as a pre-Columbian Native American.

“Mixing science, humor, and grossly irresponsible self-experimentation, Evans paints a stunning picture of how lousy habits built the world we know and love.”-David Wong, writer of John Dies by the end