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.
David Herzberg is an assistant professor of history at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 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? Appendix A: Medications Mentioned Appendix B: Prescriptions for Psychiatric Drugs, 1955–2005 Notes Index
What People are Saying About This
Lizabeth Cohen
Happy Pills in America offers an extraordinary analysis of how tranquilizers and antidepressants were as much a part of the post-World War II consumer society as suburban living and the car culture. Whether Americans bought or sold, advertised or prescribed, embraced or condemned these feel-good pills, they participated in commodifying the 'good life.'
Lizabeth Cohen
Happy Pills in America offers an extraordinary analysis of how tranquilizers and antidepressants were as much a part of the post-World War II consumer society as suburban living and the car culture. Whether Americans bought or sold, advertised or prescribed, embraced or condemned these feel-good pills, they participated in commodifying the 'good life.'
— Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
From the Publisher
Herzberg steers a very steady course through dangerous waters. Happy Pills is a beautiful read, its thesis engaging, and its style well-paced and fresh. Its non-technical language and focus on the interaction between drugs and the broader culture should appeal to many readers regardless of specialization.—David Healy, author of Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder
Happy Pills in America offers an extraordinary analysis of how tranquilizers and antidepressants were as much a part of the post-World War II consumer society as suburban living and the car culture. Whether Americans bought or sold, advertised or prescribed, embraced or condemned these feel-good pills, they participated in commodifying the 'good life.'—Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
David Healy
Herzberg steers a very steady course through dangerous waters. Happy Pills is a beautiful read, its thesis engaging, and its style well-paced and fresh. Its non-technical language and focus on the interaction between drugs and the broader culture should appeal to many readers regardless of specialization.
— David Healy, author of Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder
