Author: Richard J. Miller File Type: epub Morphine, writes Richard J. Miller, is the most significant chemical substance mankind has ever encountered. So ancient that remains of poppies have been found in Neolithic tombs, it is the most effective drug ever discovered for treating pain. Whatever advances are made in medicine, Miller adds, nothing could really be more important than that. And yet, when it comes to mind-altering substances, morphine is only a cc or two in a vast river that flows through human civilization, ranging LSD to a morning cup of tea. In DRUGGED, Miller takes readers on an eye-opening tour of psychotropic drugs, describing the various kinds, how they were discovered and developed, and how they have played multiple roles in virtually every culture. The vast scope of chemicals that cross the blood-brain barrier boggle the very brain they reach cannabis and cocaine, antipsychotics and antidepressants, alcohol, amphetamines, and Ecstasy-and much more. Literate and wide-ranging, Miller weaves together science and history, telling the story of the undercover theft of 20,000 tea plants from China by a British spy, for example, the European discovery of coffee and chocolate, and how James Wolfgang von Goethe, the famous man of letters, first isolated the alkaloid we now know as caffeine. Miller explains what scientists know-and dont-about the impact of each drug on the brain, down to the details of neurotransmitters and their receptors. He clarifies the differences between morphine and heroin, mescaline and LSD, and other similar substances. Drugged brims with surprises, revealing the fact that antidepressant drugs evolved from the rocket fuel that shot V2 rockets into London during World War II, highlighting the role of hallucinogens in the history of religion, and asking whether Prozac can help depressed cats. Entertaining and authoritative, Drugged is a truly fascinating book.

Author: Lara Deeb File Type: pdf U.S. involvement in the Middle East has brought the region into the media spotlight and made it a hot topic in American college classrooms. At the same time, anthropologya discipline committed to on-the-ground research about everyday lives and social worldshas increasingly been criticized as useless or biased by right-wing forces. What happens when the two concerns meet, when such accusations target the researchers and research of a region so central to U.S. military interests? This book is the first academic study to shed critical light on the political and economic pressures that shape how U.S. scholars research and teach about the Middle East. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar show how Middle East politics and U.S. gender and race hierarchies affect scholars across their careersfrom the first decisions to conduct research in the tumultuous region, to ongoing politicized pressures from colleagues, students, and outside groups, to hurdles in sharing expertise with the public. They detail how academia, even within anthropology, an assumed liberal discipline, is infused with sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and Zionist obstruction of any criticism of the Israeli state. Anthropologys Politics offers a complex portrait of how academic politics ultimately hinders the education of U.S. students and potentially limits the publics access to critical knowledge about the Middle East. **Review Anthropologys Politics provides an invaluable and stunning wake-up call about the most urgent challenges facing academia today. Provocative and incisive, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned with U.S. empire, neoliberal corporatization, and the political dynamics that shape higher education in the United States.Nadine Suleiman Naber, University of Illinois at Chicago Anthropologys Politics breaks a profound silence by examining how overbearing political forces shape the work of American anthropologists working on the Middle East and North Africa. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar show how work in certain regions is discouraged, how research on important political topics is devalued, and how scholars are dissuaded from using their professional knowledge to contribute to policy discussions and advocate for political action. This is an invaluable book that shatters a large and imposing disciplinary wall.David Price, Saint Martins University Incisive, forthright, and necessary. This unflinching account of the challenges that confront anthropologists, and anthropologys institutions, when engaging the politics of the Middle East is a must read for scholars in any field who are concerned with our professional responsibilities and our human obligations.Ilana Feldman, George Washington University About the Author Lara Deeb is Professor of Anthropology at Scripps College. Jessica Winegar is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University.