Killer high : a history of war in six drugs / Peter Andreas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Andreas, Peter, 1965- author.

Contributor:

Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drug utilization.

History.

Soldiers.

Soldiers--Drug use.

Soldiers--Drug use--History.

Soldiers--Substance use--History.

Drug utilization--History.

Drug abuse--History.

Drug abuse.

Military history.

Substance-Related Disorders--history.

Medicine, Military.

Military art and science.

Medical Subjects:

Substance-Related Disorders--history.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 338 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Other Title:

History of war in six drugs

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

" There is growing alarm over how drugs increasingly empower terrorists, insurgents, traffickers, 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. "-- Provided by publisher.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: How drugs made war and war made drugs

Drunk on the front

Where there's smoke there's war

Caffeinated conflict

Opium, empire, and geopolitics

Speed warfare

Cocaine wars

Conclusion: The drugged battlefields of the twenty-first century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780190463014

0190463015

OCLC:

1089569143

Publisher Number:

99983731232