Brain-Robbers: How Alcohol, Cocaine, Nicotine, and Opiates Have Changed Human History

by Frances R. Frankenburg

A psychiatrist examines how the world's four most important mind-altering substances― alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and opiates―have played a significant role throughout human history, and explains how these powerful drugs affect the brain and cause addiction.

Alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and opiates have spurred some of the greatest human pleasure and pain across time. Providing information that ranges as widely as from ancient Egypt to modern times, this book comprehensively addresses the good, the bad, and the very ugliest aspects of these substances, examining their history, their effects on the brain and body, and on civilization itself. Frances R. Frankenburg, MD, employs accessible, everyday language to explain the neurology of addiction and describe how these "brain-robbing" substances work to hijack the brain's pleasure systems to create powerful addictions. The author also provides perspective into the intertwined, inescapable, and often uneasy relationship between these substances and human culture, economics, and politics―for example, how individuals become physically or psychologically addicted to alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and opiates, while governments become financially "addicted" to the revenue, such as taxes, that can be collected from the sale and use of these substances.

Genres: History, Science

368 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2013

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mix of history and science. Chapters on how alcohol, cocaine, nicotine/tobacco and opiates have factored into history are alongside chapters on the biology/physiology/chemistry of how these items work in the body and brain with a final chapter on addiction....how it works, not exactly a conclusion.

[Mills College Library]

362.29 F8297 2014

[Mark]

COCC RC564 .F73 2014