The Age Of Addiction David T Courtwright by David T. Courtwright 9780674239258, 9780674239265, 9780674239241, 9780674737372, 0674239253, 0674239261, 0674239245, 0674737377 instant download after payment.

We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping
to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as
cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our
kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and
deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits.

The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of what
Courtwright calls “limbic capitalism,” the growing network of
competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for
feeling, motivation, and long-term memory. We see its success in Purdue
Pharma’s pain pills, in McDonald’s engineered burgers, and in Tencent
video games from China. All capitalize on the ancient quest to discover,
cultivate, and refine new and habituating pleasures. The business of
satisfying desire assumed a more sinister aspect with the rise of
long-distance trade, plantation slavery, anonymous cities, large
corporations, and sophisticated marketing. Multinational industries,
often with the help of complicit governments and criminal organizations,
have multiplied and cheapened seductive forms of brain reward, from
junk food to pornography. The internet has brought new addictions: in
2018, the World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to its
International Classification of Diseases.

Courtwright holds out hope that limbic capitalism can be contained by
organized opposition from across the political spectrum. Progressives,
nationalists, and traditionalists have made common cause against the
purveyors of addiction before. They could do it again.