Description
| Product ID: | 9781804290170 |
| Product Form: | Hardback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Series: | Jacobin |
| Title: | Quick Fixes |
| Subtitle: | Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge |
| Authors: | Author: Benjamin Yen-Yi Fong |
| Page Count: | 272 |
| Subjects: | Drugs and alcohol: social aspects, Drug & substance abuse: social aspects, Drugs trade / drug trafficking, Chemical, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, Drugs trade / drug trafficking, Chemical industries, USA, 21st century |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating Americans are in the midst of a world-historic drug binge. Drugs are ubiquitous in the past and present of capitalist society. What can they tell us about our society and economy? Americans are in the midst of a world-historic drug binge. Opiates, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, marijuana, antidepressants, antipsychotics—across the board, consumption has shot up in the 21st century. At the same time, the United States is home to the largest prison system in the world, justified in part by a now zombified “war” on drugs. How did we get here? Quick Fixes is a look at American society through the lens of its pharmacological crutches. Though particularly acute in recent decades, the contradiction between America’s passionate love and intense hatred for drugs has been one of its defining characteristics for over a century. Through nine chapters, each devoted to the modern history of a drug or class of drugs, Fong examines Americans’ fraught relationship with psychoactive substances. As society changes it produces different forms of stress, isolation, and alienation. These changes, in turn, shape the sorts of drugs society chooses. By laying out the histories, functions, and experiences of our chemical comforts, the hope is to help answer that ever perplexing question: what does it mean to be an American? |
| Imprint Name: | Verso Books |
| Publisher Name: | Verso Books |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2023-07-11 |