Shooting Up
A Short History of Drugs and War
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Narrated by:
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Ricco Fajardo
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By:
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Lukasz Kamienski
About this listen
Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War examines how intoxicants have been put to the service of states, empires, and their armies throughout history.
Since the beginning of organized combat, armed forces have prescribed drugs to their members for two general purposes: to enhance performance during combat and to counter the trauma of killing and witnessing violence after it is over. Stimulants (e.g. alcohol, cocaine, and amphetamines) have been used to temporarily create better soldiers by that improving stamina, overcoming sleeplessness, eliminating fatigue, and increasing fighting spirit. Downers (e.g. alcohol, opiates, morphine, heroin, marijuana, barbiturates) have also been useful in dealing with the soldier's greatest enemy - shattered nerves. Kamienski's focuses on drugs "prescribed" by military authorities, but also documents the widespread unauthorized consumption by soldiers themselves.
Combatants have always treated with various drugs and alcohol, mainly for recreational use and as a reward to themselves for enduring the constant tension of preparing for. Although not officially approved, such "self-medication" is often been quietly tolerated by commanders in so far as it did not affect combat effectiveness. This volume spans the history of combat from the use of opium, coca, and mushrooms in pre-modern warfare to the efforts of modern militaries, during the Cold War in particular, to design psychochemical offensive weapons that can be used to incapacitate rather than to kill the enemy. Along the way, Kamienski provides fascinating coverage of on the European adoption of hashish during Napolean's invasion of Egypt, opium use during the American Civil War, amphetamines in the Third Reich, and the use of narcotics to control child soldiers in the rebel militias of contemporary Africa.
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On a visit to the British National Archive in 2001, Sonke Neitzel made a remarkable discovery: reams of meticulously transcribed conversations among German POWs that had been covertly recorded and recently declassified. Neitzel would later find another collection of transcriptions, twice as extensive, in the National Archive in Washington, D.C. These were discoveries that would provide a unique and profoundly important window into the true mentality of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German navy, and the military in general - almost all of whom had insisted on their own honorable behavior during the war.
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More accounts less analysis please!
- By Tony on 01-14-13
By: Sonke Neitzel, and others
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No Simple Victory
- World War II in Europe, 1939-1945
- By: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.
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The Best Account of WWII in Europe
- By Nikoli Gogol on 12-27-07
By: Norman Davies
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Flowers in the Blood
- The Story of Opium
- By: Jeff Goldberg, Dean Latimer, William Burroughs - introduction
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Opium has played a dramatic and varied role in human history, inspiring religious veneration, scientific exploration, the bitterest rancor, and the most fanciful ecstasy. Now, authors Jeff Goldberg and Dean Latimer have provided a complete, insightful history of opium. Flowers in the Blood lifts the veil of mystery that has surrounded opium down through the ages.
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OPIATE DECRIMINALIZATION
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 06-18-14
By: Jeff Goldberg, and others
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Moral Combat
- Good and Evil in World War II
- By: Michael Burleigh
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 26 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweepingly ambitious overview of World War II, Michael Burleigh combines meticulous scholarship with a remarkable depth of knowledge and an astonishing scope. By exploring the moral sentiments of entire societies and their leaders and how such attitudes changed under the impact of total war, Burleigh presents listeners with a fresh and powerful perspective on a conflict that continues to shape world politics.
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terror
- By Ed on 02-12-12
By: Michael Burleigh
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Jungle of Snakes
- A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq
- By: James R. Arnold
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The end of the Cold War promised a new era of international peace. But instead, violence has proliferated across the globe, not in the form of a superpower arms race or a clash of armies, but in bitter local conflicts marked by terrorism, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare. Former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey likened the post-Cold-War world to "a jungle full of snakes". The emergence of this new, potentially never-ending struggle has forced our military to reevaluate strategies or risk losing hearts, minds, and soldiers the world over.
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Some Lessons
- By Amazon Customer on 10-02-16
By: James R. Arnold
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The Return of Marco Polo's World
- War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, as well as encounters with preeminent realist thinkers, Kaplan outlines the timeless principles that should shape America's role in a turbulent world: a respect for the limits of Western-style democracy; a delineation between American interests and American values; an awareness of the psychological toll of warfare; a projection of power via a strong navy; and more.
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Essays on the Region of the Silk Road
- By Jeff Beardsley on 05-19-18
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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The Future of War
- A History
- By: Lawrence Freedman
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.
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A good historical review of the progression of war
- By Ian R. Graham on 06-14-18
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War Without Mercy
- Race and Power in the Pacific War
- By: John W. Dower
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War - race - while writing what John Toland has called "a landmark book...a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan."
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War without Mercy
- By rbergen on 05-02-17
By: John W. Dower
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Unit 731
- The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz
- By: Derek Pua, Danielle Dybbro, Alistair Rogers
- Narrated by: Cathi Colas
- Length: 1 hr and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese war has left a strong legacy of hate and disgust among many Chinese today. Much of the atrocities committed by the Japanese are now known to most historians. Under the leadership of Dr. Shiro Isshi, the Japanese subjected three thousand to 250 thousand innocent men, women, and children to cruel experiments and medical procedures that were carried out by the brightest medical students and staff that Imperial Japan had to offer. In this edition, we expanded on the background info of Unit 731.
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Something we should all know
- By r a van der walt on 07-26-18
By: Derek Pua, and others
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Desperate Remedies
- Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness
- By: Andrew Scull
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than two hundred years, disturbances of the mind—the sorts of things that were once called "madness"—have been studied and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, some insist, is a disease like any other, whose origins can be identified and from which one can be cured. But is this true? In this masterful account of America's quest to understand and treat everything from anxiety to psychosis, one of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry today sheds light on its tumultuous past.
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A Great History but I Have One Big Reservation
- By Jeffrey Scot Minch on 08-02-22
By: Andrew Scull
What listeners say about Shooting Up
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jake Anderson
- 12-18-21
One of the best books I have listened to
The author does a fantastic job profiling the history of drug use in the military while applying details from relevant cultural, psychological, and social topics as context for historical sources. In doing so, they create a compelling story that maturely approaches topics that some consider “taboo,” which helps the reader engage with their message and understand the true relationship between war and substance use. Beyond the interesting and somewhat wild stories, the author’s messages are deeply important, especially during the last chapters of the book that focus on PTSD and addiction in veterans. Overall, this book was one of the best I have listened to yet. I look forward to listening to their other work and learning more about the psychology and pharmacology behind war and conflict.
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- Derek
- 05-25-19
Searing History
This is an excellent historical survey with a searing. take no prisoners, finish. We may be used to the idea that soldiers used "Dutch Courage" in WWI and for centuries previoously; that GI's in Vietnam used marijuana and heroin but, maybe, we are not so clear about the roles that the military. governments and pharmaceutical industries played in the distribution of drugs before and after the conflicts. This engaging work places the blame for the development and "abuse" of powerful drugs squarely on the shoulders of that triumvirate, where it belongs.
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- Alexander Romanovich
- 10-19-22
Its certainly not a brief history.
Extremely comprehensive and highly informative. The author does an amazing job by going drug by drug through history. Touching on many subjects that are not often discussed or even thought of. Highly, highly recommend this.
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- JudesInTheMood
- 08-25-18
Reads like a thesis paper
Although quite dense, this “short” History of drugs and warfare does cover a huge period of time and material. It reads a bit like a Thesis paper, at times sounding comically casual, while at other times using such verbosity of words and phrases (that add little or nothing to the content of line they create) that I wondered if the author was grasping to maximize word count. If you are willing to coast along the verbosity, however, there are brilliant nuggets that make the novel worth reading. I should also mention: The novel, in defining the patterns and practices of war, is quite depressing (you may need an anti-depressant when you’re done!).
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