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

Many things attracted me to this book. The fact that it was written by a professor of history, instead of the usual medical doctor who brilliantly explains how the addicted brain works. The idea of understanding a little bit more about the big picture around drug exploitation and the seductive appeal of power over the other, no matter the means, and how this seduction drove so many human beings to inflict such a damage over their fellow men and women, b

Many things attracted me to this book. The fact that it was written by a professor of history, instead of the usual medical doctor who brilliantly explains how the addicted brain works. The idea of understanding a little bit more about the big picture around drug exploitation and the seductive appeal of power over the other, no matter the means, and how this seduction drove so many human beings to inflict such a damage over their fellow men and women, brothers in life.

This is an image of the cover information of the book I read:

Here are the acknowledgements. What struck me of this writing was that the author was labeling almost everything as a psychotropic agent. Once I read that paragraph, I started to think that maybe the author was doing a little bit overselling of his book. But that did not deter me from reading further.

The book is organized in three parts: the first one describes the most popular psychoactive agents: alcohol, caffeine, tobacco,opium, cannabis, cocaine; and gives a glimpse on the distribution strategies. The second part focus a little bit more in the commerce, from the point of view of the power that having and distributing the drug gives to the owner, and the third part dwells a little bit more in the power process behind the drug trade. Here is the table of contents:

Here is a description of a very interesting drug user: Anthony Colombo. The introduction just get the reader started onto something really juicy.

Here is a discussion on questioning why some substances have to be made illegal, assuming that we always are looking for pleasure instead of pain.

In the following paragraph the author wonders why some substances never made it into the big markets. What kept them from becoming drugs of choice?

Drugs had other uses, for example social status like in a good cigarette holder.

Here a discussion I found very interesting on how the fashion model industry has its little hands in the business of wanting and wishing for perfection, and how drugs go hand in hand with those ideas.

My takeaway from this book is that the most addictive drug is power. And that the real addicts are those who dare to damage the world so much by trading drugs and trying to make other humans addicted. They are addicted to the power it gives to them, from economic to any other kind of power in the world. It was an interesting read, haunting and puzzling at some points, a little bit dry on others, but a good book in general. I will keep it on my shelf for good reference on power and the thirst for it.