The Age of Anxiety: A History of America's Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers

321 Pages·2008·2.17 MB·English

by  Andrea Tone

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PRAISE FOR
The Age of Anxiety
“If you’ve ever felt your nervousness dissolve after taking a benzodi-
azepine you may have wondered if such drugs are too good to be true.
This book answers that question.Filled with personal stories and histor-
ical details,The Age ofAnxietyis a fascinating read.”
—Samuel Barondes,author of Better Than Prozac
“Andrea Tone traces the rocky, winding road leading to one of the
burning social issues in contemporary American society, and, for that
matter, all other post-industrial societies: the love affair with pharma-
ceutically relieving anxiety.This book unravels the restless social turbu-
lence that has made millions become citizens of Miltown and created a
vast multinational industrial complex serving their need for switching
on inner calm.This is a captivating story of our times told by a superbly
talented scholar who is able to make complex historical analysis a tale
for everyone.”
—Dorothy Porter,professor and chair,Department of
Anthropology,History,and Social Medicine,University of
California,San Francisco
“Conventionally,pills are discovered by scientists and marketed by drug
companies but in the case of Miltown and Valium,ordinary people dis-
covered the pills—executives in their offices, salesmen on the road,
women in their kitchens, students at college—as they coped with the
emergence of faceless dangers.The fifties and sixties were a time of be-
lief in the power of science to help us cope with life,but in turning to
pharmaceutical companies our forefathers created a new world in
which we’re now enmeshed.Charting a way forward is hardly possible
without understanding where we have come from.The Age ofAnxietyis
an indispensable account of the pilgrims’ arrival on the new continent
of tranquility.”
—David Healy,MD,professor of psychiatry,Cardiff
University;author of Let Them Eat Prozacand Mania
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“In this compelling and masterful narrative, Andrea Tone documents
America’s love/hate relationship with tranquilizers; it is a must-read for
those who consume the drugs and also for those who do not.Tone uses
sources as diverse as consumer letters to the FDA,pharmaceutical com-
pany records, the scripts of Hollywood films, and transcripts of Senate
hearings to help us understand why the Age of Anxiety has lasted for six
decades,and why men as well as women,children as well as adults,physi-
cians as well as patients are so likely to be popping pills—and so unwill-
ing to stop.”
—Ruth Schwartz Cowan,Janice and Julian Bers Professor,
University of Pennsylvania;author of Heredity and Hope
“Extensively researched and convincingly argued,The Age ofAnxiety sets
the gold standard for histories of contemporary pharmacology. It is re-
quired reading for anyone interested in the ways in which psychiatric
drugs become metabolized into the American popular imagination.”
—Jonathan M.Metzl,author of Prozac On the Couch
“This gripping book is much more than a history of psychopharmaceu-
tical invention; it is an account of our fears and fantasies about pills....
The Age ofAnxietyis a remarkable window into modern America and the
ways in which Americans choose to live their lives.”
—Tanya Luhrmann,author of OfTwo Minds:
An Anthropologist Looks at American Psychiatry
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THE AGE OF ANXIETY
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ALSO BY ANDREA TONE
Medicating Modern America
Devices and Desires
The Business of Benevolence
Controlling Reproduction
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The Age of
Anxiety
A History of
America’s Turbulent Affair
with Tranquilizers
A N D R E A T O N E
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
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Copyright © 2009 by Andrea Tone
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved.Printed in the United States of America.No part of this book
may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.For
information,address the Perseus Books Group,387 Park Avenue South,New
York,NY 10016-8810.
Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk
purchases in the United States by corporations,institutions,and other
organizations.For more information,please contact the Special Markets
Department at the Perseus Books Group,2300 Chestnut Street,Suite 200,
Philadelphia,PA 19103,or call [phone],ext.5000,or e-mail
[email protected].
Designed by Brent Wilcox
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tone,Andrea,1964–
The age of anxiety :a history of America’s turbulent affair with tranquilizers /
Andrea Tone.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-465-08658-0 (alk.paper)
1.Tranquilizing drugs—United States—History.2.Antipsychotic drugs—
United States—History.I.Title.
[DNLM:1.Antipsychotic Agents—history—United States.2.Anxiety
Disorders—drug therapy—United States.3.Pharmaceutical Preparations—
history—United States.QV 11 AA1 T664a 2009]
RM333.T66 2009
615'.7882—dc22
2008032718
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Sophia
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
1 Anxiety Before the Tranquilizer Revolution 1
2 The Making of Miltown 27
3 The Fashionable Pill 53
4 Psychiatry in the Medicine Cabinet 69
5 Arsenals of the Anxious 93
6 Corporate Choreography and Molecular Play 117
7 Suffering Amid the Silence 141
8 Mother’s Little Helpers 175
9 Tranquilizers on Trial 203
Acknowledgments 233
Notes 237
Index 289
vii