Killer High: A History of War in Six Drugs
- ISBN-10
- 0190463031
- ISBN-13
- 9780190463038
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 368
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2019-12-02
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Peter Andreas
Description
There is growing alarm over how drugs empower terrorists, insurgents, militias, and gangs. But by looking back not just years and decades but centuries, Peter Andreas reveals that the drugs-conflict nexus is actually an old story, and that powerful states have been its biggest beneficiaries. In his path-breaking Killer High, Andreas shows how six psychoactive drugs-ranging from old to relatively new, mild to potent, licit to illicit, natural to synthetic-have proven to be particularly important war ingredients. This sweeping history tells the story of war from antiquity to the modern age through the lens of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, amphetamines, and cocaine. Beer and wine drenched ancient and medieval battlefields, and the distilling revolution lubricated the conquest and ethnic cleansing of the New World. Tobacco became globalized through soldiering, with soldiers hooked on smoking and governments hooked on taxing it. Caffeine and opium fueled imperial expansion and warfare. The commercialization of amphetamines in the twentieth century energized soldiers to fight harder, longer, and faster, while cocaine stimulated an increasingly militarized drug war that produced casualty numbers surpassing most civil wars. As Andreas demonstrates, armed conflict has become progressively more drugged with the introduction, mass production, and global spread of mind-altering substances. As a result, we cannot understand the history of war without including drugs, and we similarly cannot understand the history of drugs without including war. From ancient brews and battles to meth and modern warfare, drugs and war have grown up together and become addicted to each other.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity
By Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, William W. FrankoTimberlake, Jeffrey M., AaronJ. Howell, and Amanda Staight. 2011. “Trends in the Suburbaniza— tion of Racial/ Ethnic Groups in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, ...
-
TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-industrial America
By William Bruce Wheeler, Michael J. McDonaldFor example , on January 12 , 1972 , the newly - formed Timberlake Advising Boardcomposed of people from TVA , Boeing , various state agencies , and local ...
-
Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History
By Andrew Robertson, Michael A. Morrison, William G. ShadeIn 1816, Margaret married John Timberlake, a ship's purser in the U.S. Navy, but her conduct continued to be criticized. According to local gossip, ...
-
Drug Control Policy: Essays in Historical and Comparative Perspective
By William O. WalkerClark, Deliver Us From Evil, 218-23; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 5-15, 28, 32-45; Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, ...
-
Economic Politics in the United States: The Costs and Risks of Democracy
By William R. KeechNor was it to actasa centralized depository, an officeof discountfor commercialbanks, ora lender of last resort” (Timberlake 1978, p. 4).
-
Milton Friedman
By William RugerRichard Timberlake likewise thought Friedman was a “scintillating teacher” (Timberlake 1999, 22). Finally, Becker noted that “no course had anywhere near ...
-
The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good
By William E. HudsonIdeology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good William E. Hudson ... 191 Timberlake, Justin, 88 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 26 Townsend, Francis, ...
-
Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination
By William Shughart IIKrauss, Melvyn B., and Edward P. Lazear, eds. 1991. Searching for Alternatives: Drug-Control ... Paul, Randolph E. 1954. ... Timberlake, James, H. 1963.
-
A Short History of American Industrial Policies
By William R. NesterRichard H. Timberlake, The Origins of Central Banking in the United States ... Industrial Policy, and Rational Ignorance,” in Claude E. Barfield and William ...
-
The Boiling Point
By Todd WerdebaughIt 's like when someone judges you that way, and I know it 's because I 'm ... the one 's they judge and criticize have to deal with the pain they cause?