Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Advanced
Title details for The Age of Anxiety by Andrea Tone - Available

The Age of Anxiety

by Andrea Tone
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
Anxious Americans have increasingly pursued peace of mind through pills and prescriptions. In 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 40 million adult Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year: more than double the number thought to have such a disorder in 2001. Anti-anxiety drugs are a billion-dollar business. Yet as recently as 1955, when the first tranquilizer — Miltown — went on the market, pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldn't't be interest in anxiety-relief. At mid-century, talk therapy remained the treatment of choice.
But Miltown became a sensation — the first psychotropic blockbuster in United States history. By 1957, Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions. Patients seeking made-to-order tranquility emptied drugstores, forcing pharmacists to post signs reading "more Miltown tomorrow." The drug's financial success and cultural impact revolutionized perceptions of anxiety and its treatment, inspiring the development of other lifestyle drugs including Valium and Prozac.
In The Age of Anxiety, Andrea Tone draws on a broad array of original sources — manufacturers' files, FDA reports, letters, government investigations, and interviews with inventors, physicians, patients, and activists — to provide the first comprehensive account of the rise of America's tranquilizer culture. She transports readers from the bomb shelters of the Cold War to the scientific optimism of the Baby Boomers, to the "just say no" Puritanism of the late 1970s and 1980s.
A vibrant history of America's long and turbulent affair with tranquilizers, The Age of Anxiety casts new light on what it has meant to seek synthetic solutions to everyday angst.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Basic Books

Kindle Book

  • Release date: December 30, 2008

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780786727476
  • Release date: December 30, 2008

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780786727476
  • File size: 2146 KB
  • Release date: December 30, 2008

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Medical Nonfiction

Languages

English

Anxious Americans have increasingly pursued peace of mind through pills and prescriptions. In 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 40 million adult Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year: more than double the number thought to have such a disorder in 2001. Anti-anxiety drugs are a billion-dollar business. Yet as recently as 1955, when the first tranquilizer — Miltown — went on the market, pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldn't't be interest in anxiety-relief. At mid-century, talk therapy remained the treatment of choice.
But Miltown became a sensation — the first psychotropic blockbuster in United States history. By 1957, Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions. Patients seeking made-to-order tranquility emptied drugstores, forcing pharmacists to post signs reading "more Miltown tomorrow." The drug's financial success and cultural impact revolutionized perceptions of anxiety and its treatment, inspiring the development of other lifestyle drugs including Valium and Prozac.
In The Age of Anxiety, Andrea Tone draws on a broad array of original sources — manufacturers' files, FDA reports, letters, government investigations, and interviews with inventors, physicians, patients, and activists — to provide the first comprehensive account of the rise of America's tranquilizer culture. She transports readers from the bomb shelters of the Cold War to the scientific optimism of the Baby Boomers, to the "just say no" Puritanism of the late 1970s and 1980s.
A vibrant history of America's long and turbulent affair with tranquilizers, The Age of Anxiety casts new light on what it has meant to seek synthetic solutions to everyday angst.
Expand title description text
Medical Nonfiction
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Basic Books

    Kindle Book
    Release date: December 30, 2008

    OverDrive Read
    ISBN: 9780786727476
    Release date: December 30, 2008

    EPUB ebook
    ISBN: 9780786727476
    File size: 2146 KB
    Release date: December 30, 2008

  • Creators
  • Formats
    Kindle Book
    OverDrive Read
    EPUB ebook
  • Languages
    English