Research Catalog

Title

Happy pills in America : from Miltown to Prozac / David Herzberg.

Author

Herzberg, David L. (David Lowell)

Publication

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Supplementary Content

• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

x, 279 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Valium. Paxil. Prozac. Prescribed by the millions each year, these medications have been hailed as wonder drugs and vilified as numbing and addictive crutches. Where did this "blockbuster drug" phenomenon come from? What factors led to the mass acceptance of tranquilizers and antidepressants? And how has their widespread use affected American culture?" "David Herzberg addresses these questions by tracing the rise of psychiatric medicines, from Miltown in the 1950s to Valium in the 1970s to Prozac in the 1990s. The result is more than a story of doctors and patients. From bare-knuckled marketing campaigns to political activism by feminists and antidrug warriors, the fate of psychopharmacology has been intimately wrapped up in the broader currents of modern American history. Beginning with the emergence of a medical marketplace for psychoactive drugs in the postwar consumer culture, Herzberg traces how "happy pills" became embroiled in Cold War gender battles and the explosive politics of the "war against drugs" - and how feminists brought the two issues together in a dramatic campaign against Valium addiction in the 1970s. A final look at antidepressants shows that the Prozac phenomenon, too, owed as much to commerce and culture as to scientific wizardry."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Drug Industry > trends
• Psychotropic drugs > United States > History
• Psychotropic Drugs > therapeutic use
• Consumer Behavior
• Culture
• Psychotropic Drugs > history
• United States
• History, 20th Century
• Psychotropic drugs > Social aspects > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-273) and index.

Contents

Introduction. Medicine, Commerce, and Culture -- 1. Blockbuster Drugs in the Age of Anxiety -- 2. Listening to Miltown -- 3. Wonder Drugs and Drug Wars -- 4. The Valium Panic -- 5. Prozac and the Incorporation of the Brain -- Conclusion: Better Living through Chemistry? -- App. A. Medications Mentioned -- App. B. Prescriptions for Psychiatric Drugs, 1955-2005.

ISBN

• 9780801890307 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 0801890306 (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

2008007645

OCLC

• ocn212399905
• 212399905
• SCSB-5449134

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries