. Now, addiction has devastated portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America--addiction like no other the country has ever faced. Drug czar politico favorite book of the year--angus deaton, nobel Prize Economics Bloomberg/WSJ Best Books of 2015--Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky WSJ Books of the Year--Slate.
Com’s 10 best books of 2015--entertainment weekly’s 10 best books of 2015 --buzzfeed’s 19 best nonfiction books of 2015--The Daily Beast’s Best Big Idea Books of 2015--Seattle Times’ Best Books of 2015--Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2015--St. Louis post-dispatch’s best books of 2015--the guardian’s the best book we read all year--audible’s best books of 2015--texas observer’s Five Books We Loved in 2015--Chicago Public Library’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2015From a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma to main streets nationwide, an explosive and shocking account of addiction in the heartland of America.
In 1929, in the blue-collar city of portsmouth, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, Ohio, it became the vital center of the community. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico. Introducing a memorable cast of characters--pharma pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, and parents--Quinones shows how these tales fit together.
Meanwhile, independent of any drug cartel--assaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the country, a massive influx of black tar heroin--cheap, driven by a brilliant, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system.
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
Groundbreaking. He takes readers inside purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. A landmark work of investigative journalism.
David A. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Equal parts crime thriller, and business exposé, medical detective story, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.
. A country doctor in rural virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive.
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
An impressive feat of journalism, monumental in scope and urgent in its implications. Jennifer latson, The Boston Globe. From the introduction of oxycontin in 1996, Macy investigates the powerful forces that led America's doctors and patients to embrace a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm.
An instant new york times bestseller, dopesick is the only book to tell the full story of the opioid crisis, from the boardroom to the courtroom and into the living rooms of Americans struggling to save themselves and their families: "masterfully interlaces stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference" New York Times from a journalist who has lived through it.
In this extraordinary work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of a national drama that has unfolded over two decades. But even in the midst of twin crises in drug abuse and healthcare, Macy finds reason to hope and ample signs of the spirit and tenacity that are helping the countless ordinary people ensnared by addiction build a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Through unsparing, compelling, and unforgettably humane portraits of families and first responders determined to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy sets out to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a gripping, unputdownable story of greed and need.
Chasing the Scream: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection
What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not be able to. This is the story of a life-changing journey that showed the world the opposite of addiction is connection. Confused, he set out on a three-year, unable to know what to do, 30, 000-mile journey to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it.
He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their war on drugs--with extraordinary results.
His discoveries led him to give a TED talk and animation which have now been viewed more than 25 million times.
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves P.S.
In his bold and bracing exploration into how human culture evolves positively through exchange and specialization, bestselling author Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. Africa is following asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
An astute, refreshing, and revelatory work that covers the entire sweep of human history—from the Stone Age to the Internet—The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better. Harper Perennial.
Opium: A History
Columbine
What really happened april 20, 1999? the horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. Dave cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. Dave cullen, Columbine, hardcover. In the wake of newtown, and virginia Tech, Aurora, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.
They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors. As we reel from the latest horror. Harper Perennial. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix.
.
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.
The starting point for mcgreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats. A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But american overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers--resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland.
Dave cullen, Columbine, hardcover. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
As the united states celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests.
His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. Jarvious cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. Dave cullen, Columbine, hardcover. Harper Perennial. Although jim crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.
The new jim crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U. S.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, remarkable, and riveting work, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Through the breadth of its narrative, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, this book is destined to become a classic.
Dave cullen, Columbine, hardcover. Warmth. Isabel. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. Best seller. She interviewed more than a thousand people, our country, and gained access to new data and official records, altering our cities, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, and ourselves.
With stunning historical detail, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in mississippi for chicago, who left louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, in old age, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets
. Sector after economic sector is more concentrated than it was twenty years ago, dominated by fewer and bigger players who lobby politicians aggressively to protect and expand their profit margins. And europe, shows how lobbying and campaign contributions have defanged antitrust regulators, and considers what all this means for free trade, technology, and innovation.
Isabel. But the search for an answer took Thomas Philippon on an unexpected journey through some of the most complex and hotly debated issues in modern economics. In this much-anticipated book, a leading economist argues that many key problems of the American economy are due not to the flaws of capitalism or the inevitabilities of globalization but to the concentration of corporate power.
Harper Perennial. Ultimately he reached his surprising conclusion: American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on healthy competition. Best seller. For the sake of ordinary americans, he concludes, government needs to return to what it once did best: keeping the playing field level for competition.