Blue Dreams

"Capacious and rigorous . . . Blue Dreams, like all good histories of medicine, reveals healing to be art as much as science." —Parul Sehgal, New York Times

"Terrific." —Michael Pollan

"Ambitious...Slater's depictions of madness are terrifying and fascinating." —USA Today

"A vivid and thought-provoking synthesis." —Harper's

A groundbreaking and revelatory history of psychotropic drugs, from "a thoroughly exhilarating and entertaining writer" (Washington Post).
Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, not even their creators understand exactly how or why these drugs work—or don't work—on what ails our brains. Blue Dreams offers the explosive story of the discovery and development of...