Alcoholism in America

Sarah W. Tracy is a Reach for Excellence Associate Professor, Honors College, University of Oklahoma.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Disease Concept(s) of Inebriety2. Cultural Framing of Inebriety3. Institutional Solutions for Inebriety4. Public Inebriate Hospitals and Farm Colonies5. The "Foxborough Experiment"6. Building a Boozatorium7. On the Vice and Disease of InebrietyConclusionNotesIndex

Fascinating. Tracy's book tells a compelling and revelatory story. New England Journal of Medicine 2006 Any reader interested in the subjects of alcoholism or addiction will find it worthwhile. History: Reviews of New Books 2006 A pathbreaking argument about what medicalization meant for patients as well as doctors and, more generally, American culture. Journal of American Culture 2006 Essential reading for any clinician with a historical bent. This valuable monograph traces the tension between moralism and science in the understanding of alcoholism. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 2006 Tracy sets a new standard of sophistication in this lucid exposition of alcohol as 'a complicated cultural signifier.' Journal of American History 2006 One of the signal achievements of Alcoholism in America is its thorough historicization of modern understandings of alcohol abuse. Reviews in American History 2006 Offers historical insight into the sources and solutions to alcohol-related problems... This book will find many appreciative audiences. -- William L. White Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 2006 Meticulous and smart... An important contribution to the field of alcohol and temperance history. -- Elaine Frantz Parsons American Historical Review 2006 This excellent volume reworks intellectual territory opened up in the 1970s and 1980s by members of the Alcohol Research Group. -- Katherine A. Chavigny Journal of the History of Medicine 2006 The most interesting aspect of the book is her analysis of the complex mix of medical and moral considerations that informed the approach to alcoholism over the period. -- Luc Berlivet Medical History 2007 Tells new and important histories of people's efforts to find a cure for themselves or others and provides examples of heartbreaking failures. Her book enriches our reading of reform in this period. -- Rachel E. Bohlmann Annals of Iowa 2006 [Tracy's] fine book illuminates a neglected and often misunderstood chapter in the history of alcohol and alcoholism. JAMA 2008 This is an excellent book... full of interesting case studies, anecdotes and historical insights. It is well worth reading by all of those who have an interest in the way in which we currently construe alcohol policy, and is a brimful of reminders that we are regularly in danger of reinventing the heel unless we carefully study the history of this ubiquitous and puzzling problem. -- E.B. Ritson Alcohol and Alcoholism 2009