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Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World

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This book is great fun, not least because of the author's extraordinary skill in the efficient delivery of interesting facts. The opening chapters, which detail the origins of the world's major drugs, are among the most informative I've read.

The second half of the book, while still engrossing, is a less comprehensive historic analysis of drug use and prohibition. Courtwright concentrates on economics at the expense of culture, emphasizing production and commerce rather than demand and moral opposition. Given the enormous social influences in the modern world, such as the American cultural war against 60's drug use and the pervasive use of alcohol and tobacco as social tools, the emphasis on money and power over cultural forces in the past strikes me as an incomplete analysis. It leads the author to unconvincingly argue that American prohibition and its repeal were primarily the results of economic interests (a "contradiction of capitalism"). Oddly, the same events in the Soviet Union are attributed to "popular resistance", without any comparative discussion of the two nations. Finally, the value of pleasure and the concept of individual rights are generally neglected.

In the end, my main problem with is that Courtwright doesn't give culture the excellent and amusing treatment he gives commerce. I can think of worse things to say about a book.

I read an early draft of this book, then recently finished the completed product. In both cases, the book was always easy to read, enlightening, and meticulously researched. Courtwright is a well known social historian who has specialized in drug abuse and violence in modern society.

Forces of Habit more of a general history than his early works, which primarily dealt with narrow topics. In the book, Courtwright traces the spread of drug use (and abuse) from isolated, local customs to the largescale manufacture and distribution seen today. He explores the history of all psychoactive substances, both legal and illegal. Tobbaco, alcohol, and caffenine are explored in one chapter, where cocaine, marijuana, and opiates are dealt with in the next. Other, rare drugs are also discussed.

Courtwright presents a balanced view of the use of these substances, exploring the economic, political, and cultural impact of drug use. This book is always a pleasure to read, as Courtwright has the ability to convey information easily, without "dumbing it down" for the reader. This book is highly recommended.

"Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World" by David T. Courtwright (Harvard University Press, 277 pp, $24.95) is a vivid account of the global spread of psychoactive drugs over the last 500 years. The University of North Florida historian defines drugs broadly enough to include not just the usual suspects like heroin and marijuana, but also generally legal drugs such as tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.

Courtwright's witty writing should appeal to those with a taste for black humor. The author possesses a seemingly infinite supply of vivid examples about the impact of drugs on humanity, and even upon the animal kingdom. Lions, he notes, "have learned to prey upon drunks staggering home at night from East African roadside bars."

"Forces of Habit" can help modern white-collar workers banned from smoking indoors reflect on the ferocious anti-smoking campaigns that earlier tobacco addicts endured. While American smokers are forced to risk pneumonia each winter while they puff away in the freezing doorways of office buildings, "Russian smokers suffered beatings and exile; snuff takers had their noses torn off. Chinese smokers had their heads impaled on pikes. Turkish smokers under the reign of Ahmed I endured pipe stems thrust through their noses."

Ironies abound in "Forces of Habit." Alcoholics Anonymous' co-founders, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, "both smoked heavily and died of cigarette-related illnesses." (Today, AA chapters searching for meeting places are bedeviled by the new prohibitions on indoor smoking. Reformed alcoholics often want to smoke to relieve the tension of staying on the wagon.)

But Courtwright has serious ambitions as well.

"This book," he writes, "grew out of a broader curiosity about psychoactive commerce, a ubiquitous -- and, I now believe, defining -- feature of the modern world."

This leads Courtwright to rewrite much of human history from a, well, drugocentric viewpoint. "The domestication of fire," he informs us, "made widespread drug use possible in the first place." A few eons later, "The Apollo 11 astronauts," he notes, "were drinking coffee three hours after landing on the moon."

"Forces of Habit" is thus in the grand tradition of the Monomaniacal School of History. It stands comparison to such valuable works as William McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples" and Daniel Yergin's "The Prize," which explained the history of the world in terms of germs and oil, respectively.

Courtwright's vast goals are assisted by his defining "psychoactive drug" expansively enough to include coffee and chocolate. He even tentatively discusses sugar. I'm not sure why he didn't ultimately accept sugar as "psychoactive." Those of us with little kids have certainly seen sugar's impact on brain chemistry.

One problem with his semi-sprawling approach to defining "psychoactive drugs" is that it's not clear where to draw the line. If I drink a glass of warm milk to help me fall asleep, does that make milk psychoactive? Or would it be "psychodeactive?"

When going on a family outing, I always insist that we bring along some high-calorie, high-fat foods like cheese sticks. Few things end screaming tantrums faster than cheese. And it helps mellow out my kids, too. So, is cheese a psychoactive drug, just like crack and crank?

What about sunshine? The vitamin D it produces seldom fails to cheer me up.

Is a tan also a drug?

Evidently, Courtwright defines a drug as a chemical that wasn't around for most of human evolution. He takes a Darwinian perspective on the desire for drugs.

"Humans evolved in itinerant band societies. Life in the sedentary peasant societies that succeeded them was less varied, fulfilling, egalitarian and healthful. Taking drugs to get through the daily grind (or to treat the intestinal and parasitic diseases attendant to settled life) is peculiar to civilization. ... Such practices are further clues, if any are needed, that our social circumstances are out of sync with our evolved natures."

Drugs apparently produce artificially the pleasurable brain chemistry reactions that evolution devised to reward our distant caveman ancestors for engaging in hunting and other behaviors essential to survival. Perhaps this explains the terrible alcoholism problems currently suffered by the indigenous tribes -- such as American Indians, Eskimos and Australian aborigines -- who have only recently given up the primordial hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Of course, New World Indians had their own native drugs to share with Columbus. According to Courtwright's bottomless bag of memorable quotes, the fanatically anti-smoking and anti-drinking Adolf Hitler called tobacco, "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor." (Perhaps, though, Hitler showed that power is the most dangerous drug of all.)

Courtwright dislikes drugs, but what he really hates is capitalism. "The peculiar, vomitorious genius of modern capitalism," he expounds, "is its ability to betray our senses with one class of products or services and then sell us another to cope with the damage so that we can go back to consuming more of what caused the problem in the first place."

Rich merchants and Western European governments generally encouraged drug commerce well into the 19th century. The relatively recent growth of temperance movements and at least partially effective government controls on drugs, Courtwright asserts, were a response to the industrial revolution changing what capitalists required from workers. Before industrialization, landlords could keep fieldworkers in debt-slavery by getting them addicted to expensive alcohol or opium. Drunken factory workers, though, would break expensive machinery.

"The growing cost of the abuse of manufactured drugs turned out to be a fundamental contradiction of capitalism," claims Courtwright. On the other hand, one could also argue that the historically high level of sobriety reigning in today's hyper-capitalistic information economy -- where caffeine is the only acceptable drug -- demonstrates that free markets can encourage self-control.

Many economists, most notably Milton Friedman, have suggested legalizing all drugs. They point out that the outlawing of drugs generates crime, just as Prohibition did.

The historian Courtwright, however, believes these economists are living in a theoretical dreamland. The "dangers of exposing people to psychoactive substances for which, it is increasingly clear, they lack evolutionary preparation" means that the "answer, whatever it may be, is not a return to a minimally regulated drug market."

I fear this is true, but I would have liked to have seen Courtwright grapple more directly with the libertarian economists' arguments. Historians love facts, but distrust logic, while economists don't like to mess up their beautiful theories with too much reality. Perhaps someday, a thinker equally at home with both the history and theory of drugs will resolve this crucial quandary. Until then, "Forces of Habit" makes a fine introduction.

I'm an obscure history buff and when I saw this one it piqued my interest. This is part history, part science and part sociology and the author makes this a more interesting subject than I thought it could be. He starts off with what he calls the Big Three: Alcohol, Tobacco and Caffiene. From there he breaks it further down citing the most popular and not so popular illegal drugs. Mentioning natural stimulants that are unfamiliar to most, such as Qat, Kava and Betel and the very descriptive reasons on why they did not take to popular consumption.

Courtwright also doesn't fail to mention that, even though with best intentions, scientists around the 1800's and the turn of the century were also responsible for some of the most addictive substances. Your jaw will drop when you read who devolped heroin and what is was originally used for.

Fun, informative, and mind blowing reading.

I was attracted to this book originally because I had read one of Courtwright's other books, "Violent Land," and was very much impressed. Courtwright seems to be building a career on the study of the historical dimensions of deviance--which is important for all of us when we try to look at today's problems in perspective. A major theme of "Forces of Habit" is that some drugs, such as coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol, and chocolate have become "world drugs" due to the efforts of the international pushers known as "the West." Other drugs, such as qat, kava, and betel have never caught on in the West and, as a result, have not been made into international commodities complete with huge multi-continent plantations and a complex distribution system. The West, however, has now decided that some drugs are bad because they don't work well in complex, industrialized society--cocaine, heroin, etc. Even though the British were once the major distributors of Opium, literally forcing it on the Chinese, they now oppose it. "Forces of Habit" is a fascinating but quick tour of many aspects of the history of drugs from a macro perpective. If you are looking for more details on specific drugs or a detailed analysis of a particular era, Courtwright does offer an annotated bibliography to guide you. If all you want is an overview, this is a great place to start.

What fun this book is! Too bad all history books are not so entertaining and informative. We might all benefit from understanding the history of the economics and culture that underpin drug trafficking in the 21st century. If history and economics were always written in such an engaging way, nobody would ever flunk out of History 101 or find it boring.

I saw a blurb on this book in the Chronicle of Higher Ed and picked it up, reading it over vacation. Mr. Courtwright has written a detailed, well supported work about the history of licit and illicit drugs without espousing favored theories or working the material around to support his conclusions. He has brought diverse detailed information together, creating a cogent, fascinating and frightening picture of how the 'big three' and the 'little three' of licit and illicit substances gained such prevalence in daily life.

As a side note, there was a certain irony to drinking a Diet Coke and reading this book that other readers will appreciate.

I really enjoyed this. It was informative and well written. It was as detailed and technical as it needed to be without bogging down too much in endless facts. It has a lively literary style that keeps the chapters flowing. In the end, it changed some of my (admittedly liberal) attitudes about the legalization and regulation of illicit, and licit drugs. It helped me to see more clearly the deeper issues and underlying history behind the use and abuse of drugs worldwide.

The book is an easy read, but it doesn't really seem to have a point. It goes thru a lot of different drugs and a lot of historical snipets and you sort of feel like you a learning something, but in the end you get nothing. There does not seem to be enough depth about any one drug or any one aspect of the drug trade or any anything. It is not a bad book, but it is not a good one either. Certainly not great.

I was surprised to see caffeine and sugar presented in this book. They are by far the most addicting drugs in the modern world.

My only complaint with the book is the way it is presented. It seems to just ramble on in certain places.