Opium How an ancient flower shaped and poisoned our world
Book - 2019
Opioid addiction is fast becoming the most deadly crisis in American history. In 2017, it claimed nearly fifty thousand lives -- more than gunshots and car crashes combined, and almost as many Americans as were killed in the entire Vietnam War. But even as the overdose crisis ravages our nation -- straining our prison system, dividing families, and defying virtually every legislative solution to treat it-- few understand how it came to be. Opium tells the extraordinary and at times harrowing tale of how we arrived at today's crisis, "mak[ing] timely and startling connections among painkillers, politics, finance, and society" (Laurence Bergreen). The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, an...d goes on to explore how Greek physicians and obscure chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an epidemic of addiction. Throughout, Dr. John Halpern and David Blistein reveal the fascinating role that opium has played in building our modern world, from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies. Most importantly, they disentangle how crucial misjudgments, patterns of greed, and racial stereotypes served to transform one of nature's most effective painkillers into a source of unspeakable pain-and how, using the insights of history, state-of-the-art science, and a compassionate approach to the illness of addiction, we can overcome today's overdose epidemic. This urgent and masterfully woven narrative tells an epic story of how one beautiful flower became the fascination of leaders, tycoons, and nations through the centuries and in their hands exposed the fragility of our civilization.
- Subjects
- Published
-
New York :
Hachette Books
2019.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Other Authors
- Edition
- First edition
- Physical Description
- xxiv, 328 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps, portraits (some color) ; 24 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-315) and index.
- ISBN
- 9780316417662
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I. Opium in Antiquity
- Chapter 1. The Mysterious Origins of the Opium Poppy
- Chapter 2. Papyruses and Poppies
- Chapter 3. A Journey Around the Mediterranean
- Part II. Opium and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- Chapter 4. Classic Cures, Ancient Addictions
- Chapter 5. A Little Light on the "Dark Ages"
- Chapter 6. Opium's Golden Age
- Chapter 7. The Monarch of Medicine
- Part III. Opium Goes Global
- Chapter 8. Marco Polo and the Rise of Global Commerce
- Chapter 9. "The Spice Trade Was in Reality the Drug Trade"
- Chapter 10. The Two Most Addictive Drugs on Earth
- Chapter 11. The Spice Race
- Chapter 12. The Queen and Her Company
- Chapter 13. A 5,000-Year Tradition of Medicine and Moderation
- Chapter 14. Opening the China Market
- Chapter 15. Great Britain "Invades" China
- Chapter 16. Trading Opium in Canton: "The Complicated Machinery of Evasion"
- Part IV. The Opium Wars
- Chapter 17. Two Letters that Could Have Prevented a War
- Chapter 18. Five Roads to War
- Chapter 19. The First Drug War
- Part V. The Agony and the Ecstasy
- Chapter 20. America Enters the Opium Business
- Chapter 21. Generosity and Greed
- Chapter 22. Americans Try Growing Their Own
- Chapter 23. Good Intentions, Tragic Results
- Chapter 24. The Agony and the Ecstasy
- Part VI. Laws and Disorder
- Chapter 25. America's First Failed Drug Laws
- Chapter 26. Drug Hysteria and Race-Based Enforcement: The Harry Anslinger Story
- Chapter 27. The War Nobody's Ever Won
- Chapter 28. The $1 Trillion Question: What Do We Do Now?
- Afterword
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review