Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (review)

Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. By David T. Courtwright (Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2001) 277 pp. $24.95

Expanding on his earlier informative work in drug history, Courtwright provides in Forces of Habit a compact and superb history of the main psychoactive substances from their initial marketing, through their growing worldwide sale—in the process decisively molding the international marketplace—and finally to the age of concern and restraint. The drugs prompting the psychoactive revolution fall into two groups, the "Big Three"—alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine—and the "Little Three"—opium, cannabis, and coca. Courtwright gives each drug a succinct historical account, and he lucidly traces the power of both groups in commercial development and legislation, beginning in the sixteenth century. He refers to the eventual prominence of these drugs in commerce and legislation as "one of the signal events of world history" (2).

The drugs maintained status with governmental authorities because they were such an easy source of tax revenues. The drugs were esteemed by managerial elites because they were so profitable and could be used to control manual laborers.

The drugs began as regular medicines, but they quickly moved into the realm of abuse, establishing habits with dangerous consequences. The tales of alcohol and tobacco are told with particle vividness, including the decades-long efforts at governmental control in the United States. The entire world is the author's concern, however. He gives attention to China, Russia, Britain, and other nations at crucial times. Such famous names as Marcus Aurelius, Jules Verne, Otto von Bismarck, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Pablo Picasso turn up in his sweep. Twenty-five apt illustrations bolster the volume's concepts.

Forces of Habit should be welcomed by an interdisciplinary audience; it fuses neatly a number of separate thematic strands, among them medical, commercial, political, recreational, and criminal. The bibliography and notes reveal the author's prodigious and imaginative research. Courtwright deserves high compliments for his enlightening and absorbing contribution to a topic of continuing concern.