Premium
History and its contribution to understanding addiction and society
Author(s) -
Berridge Virginia
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0965-2140
DOI - 10.1111/add.12903
Subject(s) - memoir , addiction , field (mathematics) , professionalization , politics , opium , unit (ring theory) , psychology , public relations , sociology , history , political science , social science , law , psychiatry , mathematics education , mathematics , pure mathematics
This paper provides a personal memoir of historical work at the Addiction Research Unit, in particular the genesis of the book Opium and the People . This topic had policy significance for US drug policy and a competing US study was funded. The development of the substance use history field is surveyed, and its expansion in recent times through a focused professional association and a critical mass of researchers in the area, covering a wide range of topics. The politics of using history in this area can be problematic. History now sits at the policy table more easily, but there is still a tendency for professionals in the field to use (and misuse) it, rather than calling on the interpretive and challenging approach they would obtain from professional historians. The paper calls for historians and others to move beyond a substance specific focus and to avoid the tendency for 'naive history' implicit in using only digitized industry archives as the sole source.