Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (Google eBook)

David T. COURTWRIGHT, David T Courtwright

Harvard University Press, Jun 30, 2009 - History - 288 pages

Offering a social and biological account of why psychoactive goods proved so seductive, David Courtwright tracks the intersecting paths by which popular drugs entered the stream of global commerce. He shows how the efforts of merchants and colonial planters expanded world supply, drove down prices, and drew millions of less affluent purchasers into the market, effectively democratizing drug consumption. He also shows how Europeans used alcohol as an inducement for native peoples to trade their furs, sell captives into slavery, and negotiate away their lands, and how monarchs taxed drugs to finance their wars and expanding empires. Forces of habit explains why such profitable exploitation has increasingly given way, over the last hundred years, to policies of restriction and prohibition--and how economic and cultural considerations have shaped those policies to determine which drugs are readily accessible, which strictly medicinal, and which forbidden altogether.

What people are saying

Review: Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World

User Review  - Michael Lin - Goodreads

All the stuff you never knew about the histories of drugs, especially alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, marijuana and opium. How could opium and marijuana be benign in India for centuries before the british ...

Review: Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World

User Review  - Kristin - Goodreads

Fascinating synopsis of six substances in our world which are habit-forming, including sugar, tea, coffee, marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Interesting conclusions about the human condition in general ...

Contents

• Drugs and Commerce: 67
• Drugs and Power: 133
• Bibliographic Note: 211
• Abbreviations: 215
• Notes: 217
• Illustration Credits: 263
• Index: 265

About the author

David T. Courtwright is John A. Delaney Presidential Professor at the University of North Florida.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
• Authors: David T. COURTWRIGHT, David T Courtwright
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2009
• ISBN: 0674029909, 9780674029903
• Length: 288 pages
• Subjects: History / World