- ISBN13: 9780465086580
- Condition: USED – GOOD
- Notes:
Product Description
Anxious Americans have increasingly pursued peace of mind through pills and prescriptions. In 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 40 million adult Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year: more than double the number thought to have such a disorder in 2001. Anti-anxiety drugs are a billion-dollar business. Yet as recently as 1955, when the first tranquilizerMiltownwent on the market, pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldn’t be interest in anxiety-relief. At mid-century, talk therapy remained the treatment of choice. But Miltown became a sensationthe first psychotropic blockbuster in United States history. By 1957, Americans had filled 36 million p… More >>
The Age of Anxiety: A History of America’s Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers
Some Interesting Blogs
- anxiety disorder insomnia
| Stop Panic Attacks - History was made…… | Sabre Noise | A Buffalo Sabres Blog
- Harwin to Show Datamate Hi-Rel Connector Range at Military & Aerospace … – NewsBlaze | RC UAV . info
- PR5 NoFollow Links from Yale.edu | Publisher tricks
Free Health Ebook For You...
Natural Help for Immune System Support
Simply Right Click and choose Save As to save to your desktop! More FREE Natural Health, Wellness and Pet Ebooks at Remedies4.com!
An academic historian, Andrea Tone looks at the history behind anxiety and the tranquilizers used to calm it. Other books also look at how Americans use a lot of drugs like antidepressants and tranquilizers to improve their lives rather than fight a physical illness. But those authors typically push their own view on the subject. A good historian, Tone does not.
Indeed, it’s hard to know what Tone herself thinks about tranquilizers. That’s good. We readers can learn the history and make a judgment for ourselves. Tone starts with a look at hundreds of years of history of mental disorders, and how anxiety played its role in that history. Then she lays out the history of the first tranquilizer, Miltown, and how it fit in with the society that took it up with such enthusiasm.
Tone ends with the backlash against tranquilizers. As society continued to change, many found that the drugs could bite instead of comfort. Instant gratification came with a price, it seemed. A price many found too high to pay.
The Age of Anxiety is not a perfect book. It turns a bit tedious at times. Not a book that was hard to put down, it was instead occasionally hard to pick up again. That said, I did find myself drawn back into the story, wanting to know what happened next.
Many interesting glimpses into social history come out of the Age of Anxiety. Some I had known, but forgotten. For instance, how heavily the threat of nuclear war hung over the America of the 1950s and 1960s. That was a worry that even I had as a young child in that era. Tone points out that in 1959 two-thirds of American adults said in a poll that nuclear war was the issue that concerned them the most.
Other glimpses I did not know. Tone says that medical records show that President John F. Kennedy used tranquilizers, among several other drugs for pain and disease. Milton Berle used the first tranquilizer Miltown, joking that his name should be “Miltown” Berle, and promoted it heavily.
For me, the pleasure in the book was the history, told as stories of people’s lives, especially scientists Frank Berger (inventor of Miltown) and Leo Sternbach (inventor of Librium and Valium). But also former First Lady Betty Ford’s struggle with drug addiction, and that of Barbara Gordon (author of the troubling but entrancing book I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can). The stories make the book.
The Age of Anxiety delivers more than just reading pleasure. It traces the drugmaking industry from its early poverty to its current top rank in profitability among industries. That thread weaves together with science and social history to make a thought-provoking fabric. Tone does not single out any heroes or villains. Nor does she say whether these drugs are a dream or a nightmare.
But any reader will think about those questions as Tone unfolds her story. That makes The Age of Anxiety a valuable book as we as a society face the troubles every age brings.
Rating: 4 / 5
A long time user of minor tranquilizers myself, and an advocate of infrequent, though never daily, benzodiazepine use (currently prescribed Valium, though previously experienced with Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax and Librium) I found this book of great personal interest. It is well researched and generally entertaining, if a bit dry at times. The history of minor tranquilizers is a fascinating one and the author of this book does it great justice. I was particularly interested in the details of the Miltown craze, a drug of once universal popularity now relegated almost entirely to the chambers of history. Whether your interest is casual or scholarly, by all means pick up this book.
Rating: 4 / 5
History and psychiatry blend in THE AGE OF ANXIETY: A HISTORY OF AMERICA’S TURBULENT AFFAIR WITH TRANQUILIZERS. The last century has seen a huge increase in anti-anxiety medication: a trend Andrea Tone charts through manufacturers’ files, FDA reports, government investigations, and interviews with patients, physicians and activists alike. Any health library needs this survey of American tranquilizer usage and its physical and social impact.
Rating: 5 / 5