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A carregar... Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozacpor David Herzberg
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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 even the Prozac phenomenon owed as much to commerce and culture as to scientific wizardry. With a barrage of "ask your doctor about" advertisements competing for attention with shocking news of drug company malfeasance, Happy Pills is an invaluable look at how the commercialization of medicine has transformed American culture since the end of World War II. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)362.290973Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems of & services to groups of people Mentally ill Substance abuse Biography; History By Place North AmericaClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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While Herzberg examines the role of race and class, gender stands out in his analysis. He writes of the work of Miltown advertisers, “It was these images that helped circulate influential new biological narratives of masculinity” (pg. 48). Critics of tranquilizers later viewed them as “women’s drugs,” but Herzberg demonstrates how they served to combat fears of weakening masculinity in the postwar years (pg. 49). For this, he builds upon the studies of neurasthenia, a condition Gail Bederman examined in her monograph, Manliness and Civilization. Advertisers of Miltown and other tranquilizers suggested the drugs would help patients return to traditional gender roles and thereby cure their anxiety, but feminists argued the medications served to cover-up the issue that created anxiety – social inequality. Attempts to impose federal oversight over tranquilizers faced difficulty due to an incomplete model of addiction, but changing attitudes and new concepts of masculinity eventually made this possible (pg. 111). Women who worked to expose the dangers of tranquilizers did so in a manner that privileged middle class white women. While their work helped encourage patient activists, it was a product of its time (pg. 148). In response to this, manufacturers of Prozac portrayed it “as a ‘feminist drug’ that made women more assertive and competitive – ‘supermoms’ with careers who laid to rest images of Valium-stoned stat-at-home wives” (pg. 177).
Herzberg’s work uncovers the role of modern commercialized medicine in shaping all aspects of society, from gender to criminal law. Without postwar consumer culture and second-wave feminism, along with nineteenth century psychological theories and medicine, modern pharmaceuticals would not play the role they currently occupy in society. Most importantly, Herzberg demonstrates how people orchestrated and shaped these events rather than portraying them as occurring spontaneously. ( )