Description
Book SynopsisIn Killer High, Peter Andreas tells the story of war from antiquity to the modern age through the lens of six psychoactive drugs: alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, amphetamines, and cocaine. Armed conflict has become progressively more "drugged" with the global spread of these mind-altering substances. From ancient brews and battles to meth and modern warfare, drugs and war have grown up together and become addicted to each other. By looking back not justyears and decades but centuries, Andreas reveals that the drugs-conflict nexus is actually an old story, and that powerful states have been its biggest beneficiaries.
Trade ReviewKiller High, well-written and extensively researched, shows how the drugs-war relationship has served state interests and ambitions. * Katharine Neill-Harris, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books *
Since time immemorial, soldiers have consumed mind-altering substances; Andreas (International Studies/Brown Univ.; Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America, 2013, etc.) delivers an impressive, often unsettling history of six. * Kirkus *
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: How Drugs Made War and War Made Drugs 1: Drunk on the Front 2: Where there's Smoke there's War 3: Caffeinated Conflict 4: Opium, Empire, and Geopolitics 5: Speed Warfare 6: Cocaine Wars Conclusion: The Drugged Battlefields of the 21st Century Notes Index
