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We are excited to introduce a new monthly segment on our blog: the MQUP Top 5. Each month a different MQUP author will compile a list of five books that inspired, informed, or pair well with their most recent publication with us.
For March, Lucas Richert shares his five selections for his new book, Strange Trips: Science, Culture, and the Regulation of Drugs.
Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe. William James and Philip K. Dick. Welsh’s Trainspotting. Burroughs’s Junky. And DeQuincey’s Confessions of an Opium-Eater. These are some of the authors and books that often come to mind when you bring up intoxicants in popular fiction and non-fiction. In thinking about the writing of Strange Trips: Science, Culture, and the Regulation of Drugs, it occurs to me that five works were particularly influential.
I secured a copy of Cayleff’s book in 2016 and have read it twice now. It’s a stimulating jaunt through 19th and early 20th century alternative health movements.
Today, there are all sorts of discussions about wellness and New Age health, whether it’s yoga, acupuncture, or allopathy. We are rightly concerned about environmental devastation and pollution and the ethics of healing. Cayleff’s book underlined for me (in big, bold, bright letters) the longevity of these debates.
Nature’s Path cleverly illustrates how doctors, “outsiders,” regulators, and patients have negotiated the “right” kind of treatments. It has never been a straightforward process.
This is a “theory of history” book and perhaps one that conjures horrifying memories of late-night study sessions for some people. Carr’s book has stuck with me for a few reasons.
When I first read it, I found his ideas pretty mind-blowing. Humans progressed and regressed – and respectable works of history had to capture both. Facts were negotiated in the creation of historical narratives. Approaches differed from historian to historian. This was trippy stuff for me when I was a student.
Carr argued that progress, “whether in science or in history or in society,” has resulted from a willingness to meet “fundamental challenges in the name of reason” and tackle “hidden assumptions.” That seemed appropriate when thinking about the regulation of drugs!
A serious book, which I first read at a serious time in my life.
Kübler-Ross studies palliative care, humane medical treatments, and outlines various stages of grief. She engages with both patients and doctors. And her ideas helped give shape to some of the broader themes in Strange Trips. Specifically, I use it in chapters one and two, but it bubbles throughout my book.
Another anniversary! Just like On Death and Dying, it’s the fiftieth anniversary of Don Juan in 2019.
In it, Castaneda chronicles his experiences with peyote and other hallucinogens, and recounts his conversations with Yaqui Indians of the Southwest. The core of the book revolves around conversations with Don Juan. Every time I go back to this book I enjoy the vivid story-telling and the unfolding dynamic between the sorcerer and his apprentice.
I see Castaneda’s search for knowledge in the book as a microcosm for much broader societal and medico-scientific discussions about the regulations of a given drug. How do we accumulate knowledge about and pass judgment on drugs?
I also recommend Castaneda’s follow-up book, A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan.
Lastly, a tie. Yes, a tie.
Chasin’s book, which interrogates the American drug warrior Harry J. Anslinger, is poetic and whimsical. It’s amusing. And it’s unconventional. Even though I found it frustrating at times, Assassin of Youth insinuated itself into my thought process and it suggested to me that the form and style of book writing wasn’t as fixed as I had previously thought.
Pivotal Decade might seem like an odd choice, but I can’t deny its profound influence on me. Stein, from the very first page of her well-argued book about the decline of U.S. manufacturing, suggested that political and economic analyses ought to take precedence over cultural approaches. She forced me think seriously about the ways I devise and narrate my histories. Not surprisingly, she reminded me of E.H. Carr and vice versa. How would I put my book together? What sort of cultural references could/should I use? How would I play with the facts and construct my narrative?
The answers to these questions aren’t straightforward. Read my book and find out.
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