In Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac, David Herzberg argues, “The meteoric rise of tranquilizers and antidepressants signified broader developments in American society after World War II: the commercialization of medicine and science, the embrace of psychology and self-fulfillment as a political language, intensified campaigns to police social groups through drug regulation, and social movements organized in part around new concepts of identity” (pg. 3-4). He uses the tools of race, class, and gender in his examination. Herzberg begins with the modern commercialization of medicine in the postwar years and the rise of tranquilizers such as Miltown, directly marketed to doctors and patients. From there, Herzberg examines the social impact of tranquilizers on the postwar gender dynamic before unpacking the drug wars and the federal scheduling of tranquilizers. He concludes with the role of manufacturers of Paxil and modern antidepressants in filling the position once occupied by tranquilizers, but with a nuanced approach designed to address and move past the lingering stigma of tranquilizers.
While Herzberg examines the role of race and class, gender stands out in his analysis. He writes of the work of Miltown advertisers, “It was these images that helped circulate influential new biological narratives of masculinity” (pg. 48). Critics of tranquilizers later viewed them as “women’s drugs,” but Herzberg demonstrates how they served to combat fears of weakening masculinity in the postwar years (pg. 49). For this, he builds upon the studies of neurasthenia, a condition Gail Bederman examined in her monograph, Manliness and Civilization. Advertisers of Miltown and other tranquilizers suggested the drugs would help patients return to traditional gender roles and thereby cure their anxiety, but feminists argued the medications served to cover-up the issue that created anxiety – social inequality. Attempts to impose federal oversight over tranquilizers faced difficulty due to an incomplete model of addiction, but changing attitudes and new concepts of masculinity eventually made this possible (pg. 111). Women who worked to expose the dangers of tranquilizers did so in a manner that privileged middle class white women. While their work helped encourage patient activists, it was a product of its time (pg. 148). In response to this, manufacturers of Prozac portrayed it “as a ‘feminist drug’ that made women more assertive and competitive – ‘supermoms’ with careers who laid to rest images of Valium-stoned stat-at-home wives” (pg. 177).
Herzberg’s work uncovers the role of modern commercialized medicine in shaping all aspects of society, from gender to criminal law. Without postwar consumer culture and second-wave feminism, along with nineteenth century psychological theories and medicine, modern pharmaceuticals would not play the role they currently occupy in society. Most importantly, Herzberg demonstrates how people orchestrated and shaped these events rather than portraying them as occurring spontaneously. ( )

Reviewed for Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.