num_pages: 320
description: 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 tranquilizerMiltownwent on the market pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldnt be interest in anxiety-relief. At mid-century talk therapy remained the treatment of choice.But Miltown became a sensationthe 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 drugs 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 sourcesmanufacturers files FDA reports letters government investigations and interviews with inventors physicians patients and activiststo provide the first comprehensive account of the rise of Americas 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 Americas 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.
language: English
title: The Age of Anxiety: A History of America's Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers
publisher: Basic Books