| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Ed. by Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. x, 414 pp. Cloth, $70.00, ISBN 1-55849-424-3. Paper, $26.95, ISBN 1-55849-425-1.)

This edited volume, which grew out of a 1997 conference on the history of alcohol and drug use in American society, makes no secret about its ambitions. The editors, Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, observe that "the use of psychoactive drugs is a constant in American history" (p. 1). Their aim is to use the fourteen essays that follow to examine that history in a coherent fashion, looking for useful comparisons between substances. Echoing the recent work of David T. Courtwright in Forces of Habit (2001), the editors and contributors make the case that we can no longer afford the great licit/illicit divide that has kept scholarship on alcohol and drugs separate.

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